Boston in lockdown as hunt for marathon bombers unfolds
April 19, 2013 7:22 AM   Subscribe

What started as a report of a convenience store robbery near the campus of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology last night has sprawled into a chaotic manhunt for the perpetrators of the recent terrorist attack on the Boston Marathon. The deadly pursuit, involving a policeman's murder, a carjacking, a violent chase with thrown explosives, and the death of one suspect, has resulted in Governor Deval Patrick ordering an unprecedented lockdown of the entire Boston metropolitan area as an army of law enforcement searches house by house for the remaining gunman. The Associated Press has identified the duo as Tamerlan Tsarnaev, 26, and his 19-year-old brother Dzhokhar A. Tsarnaev, who remains at large. Both are immigrants from wartorn Chechnya in southwestern Russia. The Guardian liveblog is good for quick updates, and Reddit's updating crowdsourced timeline of events that has often outpaced mainstream media coverage of the situation. You can also get real-time reports straight from the (Java-based) local police scanner.
posted by Rhaomi (4878 comments total) 108 users marked this as a favorite
 
MeFi Chat is also a good source for live discussion and speculation (instructions).
posted by Rhaomi at 7:23 AM on April 19, 2013 [5 favorites]


Since there's a police scanner link here, I'm going to just echo what Anonymous, among others, is saying on twitter: Do not publicize the addresses police are at. It enormously endangers them. And when Anonymous is telling you to be careful and prudent, that should carry some weight.
posted by Tomorrowful at 7:24 AM on April 19, 2013 [66 favorites]


Thanks, Rhaomi.
posted by Elementary Penguin at 7:24 AM on April 19, 2013


A sort of reasonable way to follow twitter without too much overload: @dannysullivan's watertown list
posted by Skorgu at 7:24 AM on April 19, 2013 [1 favorite]




Is there supposed to be a link to the Guardian Liveblog?
posted by Tomorrowful at 7:26 AM on April 19, 2013 [3 favorites]


Mod note: For the record, Rhamoi checked in with us about whether to hit go on this and we said yes. No need to flag.
posted by cortex (staff) at 7:26 AM on April 19, 2013 [11 favorites]


Both are recent immigrants from wartorn Chechnya in southwestern Russia

IIRC data points to them having been here since 2002 at the latest.
posted by zombieflanders at 7:26 AM on April 19, 2013 [6 favorites]


Pronunciation tips for the suspects' names, please?
posted by nicebookrack at 7:26 AM on April 19, 2013


Here's a concise overnight update from WBUR:

– After 10 p.m. last night, a robbery took place at a 7-Eleven in Cambridge
– After that, an MIT police officer was fatally shot, allegedly by the two marathon suspects
– There was a carjacking in Cambridge involving the two suspects taking a Mercedes SUV
– The car was discovered by police in Watertown, which led to an exchange of gunfire
– During the chase, explosive devices were reportedly thrown from the suspects’ car
– During the exchange, one suspect was killed
– Also during the exchange of gunfire, an MBTA officer was shot and is in critical condition
– The second suspect fled and is at-large
– There’s an active search for the suspect who fled, the FBI’s bombing “white hat suspect”

posted by Rock Steady at 7:26 AM on April 19, 2013 [3 favorites]


From one of the links:

"Born July 22, 1993, according to Williams, Tsarnaev attended Cambridge Rindge and Latin School, has a Massachusetts driver's license, and has been in the country for around a decade."

How does that make him a 'recent immigrant'?
posted by MisantropicPainforest at 7:26 AM on April 19, 2013 [17 favorites]


Doesn't it seem like if you were the most wanted men in the country, you'd probably not want to knock over a convenience store? I mean, I know stranger things have happened, but if I had two suspects, and they proceeded to rob a 7-Eleven, it would be back to the drawing board.
posted by incomple at 7:26 AM on April 19, 2013 [16 favorites]


Boston Police Dept. ‏@Boston_Police 4m
#WANTED: Police seeking MA Plate: 316-ES9, ’99 Honda CRV, Color - Gray. Possible suspect car. Do not approach. pic.twitter.com/11eRTJdtaZ
posted by desjardins at 7:27 AM on April 19, 2013




@IntelTweet: The official media arm of the Chechen mujahideen has rejected allegations that two Chechen men were responsible for the Boston bombings.
posted by (Arsenio) Hall and (Warren) Oates at 7:28 AM on April 19, 2013


BBC: "The suspects appear to have had some - some - interest in Islamic religious studies."

27 US Media Outlets: "Islamic extremists."
posted by DarlingBri at 7:28 AM on April 19, 2013 [44 favorites]


Is the car in play or not? Seem to recall it was secured by Mass police, reported in old thread.
posted by vrakatar at 7:29 AM on April 19, 2013


Guardian liveblog is another good source. (other than metafilter, that is).
posted by shothotbot at 7:29 AM on April 19, 2013


CBS Boston saying car has been found?
posted by andruwjones26 at 7:29 AM on April 19, 2013


I'm still very confused about the third suspect and the car and train in CT and how UMass-Dartmouth comes in.
posted by maryr at 7:29 AM on April 19, 2013


Both are recent immigrants from wartorn Chechnya in southwestern Russia

NPR ran an interview with a friend of one of them who'd known him for 5 years, so the "recent immigrants" thing doesn't sound right.
posted by CheeseDigestsAll at 7:29 AM on April 19, 2013 [2 favorites]


The official media arm of the Chechen mujahideen has rejected allegations that two Chechen men were responsible for the Boston bombings.

Ok then.
posted by OmieWise at 7:29 AM on April 19, 2013 [3 favorites]


you'd probably not want to knock over a convenience store?

Unless you wanted to commit suicide by cop or you're really short on cash.
posted by drezdn at 7:29 AM on April 19, 2013 [1 favorite]


How does that make him a 'recent immigrant'?

For quite some time this morning, news outlets were reporting that both brothers had been in the U.S. for about a year, even while reporting that the younger one had gone to high school in the U.S., etc. I think that's just part of the developing nature of the story.
posted by devinemissk at 7:29 AM on April 19, 2013


Doesn't it seem like if you were the most wanted men in the country, you'd probably not want to knock over a convenience store?

If you're the most wanted men in the country and you need money, knocking over a convenience store is a pretty low-risk and low-penalty option. I'm amazed they didn't get out of Boston by Monday evening, but post-event planning is rarely criminals' strong suit.
posted by Etrigan at 7:30 AM on April 19, 2013 [4 favorites]


The Chechen propaganda team might be having its own New York Post moment:

MSNBC reports that the official media arm of the Chechen mujahideen says this is a media plot and that two Chechen suspects are innocent.
posted by BobbyVan at 7:30 AM on April 19, 2013


Thank you for putting this all together, Rhaomi.
posted by Theta States at 7:30 AM on April 19, 2013 [4 favorites]




Maybe they knocked over the store to try to get cash for their escape. Their photos had just been released: They would want untraceable money for their getaway.
posted by Rustic Etruscan at 7:30 AM on April 19, 2013 [3 favorites]




Both are recent immigrants from wartorn Chechnya in southwestern Russia.

No they have been here for 10 years and are from Kyrgyzstan via Dagestan.
posted by The 10th Regiment of Foot at 7:31 AM on April 19, 2013 [12 favorites]


The official media arm of the Chechen mujahideen has rejected allegations that two Chechen men were responsible for the Boston bombings.

Ok then.


While it does seem like a "No True Scotsman" thing, it's also a way of saying this isn't an attack planned by their group.
posted by drezdn at 7:31 AM on April 19, 2013 [6 favorites]


The lesson from all of this is that 7-11 will not put up with your shit.
posted by shakespeherian at 7:31 AM on April 19, 2013 [52 favorites]


The police just found the car registered to the suspect. Is there still validity to the claim that he's heading to NYC in a suicide vest?
posted by DoubleLune at 7:32 AM on April 19, 2013


Djohar's vk account says/said he speaks English, Russian and Chechen.
posted by gubo at 7:32 AM on April 19, 2013


Couldn't they just as easily be motivated by secular/nationalist causes as by Islam? Even if that's their religion, it may not be their motivation.

I really hope at least one conspirator is captured alive and will be able to give us some insight into their thinking.
posted by emjaybee at 7:32 AM on April 19, 2013 [8 favorites]


What's this about a woman in an SUV?
posted by playertobenamedlater at 7:32 AM on April 19, 2013


I was thinking "recent immigrants" as in "not born and raised in the US" (versus the perennial "Timothy McVeigh Mk. 2" theories) combined with their youth, but yes, it probably could have been phrased better.
posted by Rhaomi at 7:33 AM on April 19, 2013


odinsdream: "hot pursuit" laws generally allow that, yes
posted by contrarian at 7:33 AM on April 19, 2013 [2 favorites]


Press secretary of Kadyrov sez they have not had anything to do with Chechnya for a long time.
posted by vkxmai at 7:33 AM on April 19, 2013


I really hope at least one conspirator is captured alive and will be able to give us some insight into their thinking.

I'm so worried about that. One guy's already dead...
posted by showbiz_liz at 7:33 AM on April 19, 2013 [1 favorite]


If we can't trust the official media arm of the Chechen mujahideen, who can we trust?
posted by Area Man at 7:33 AM on April 19, 2013 [27 favorites]



While it does seem like a "No True Scotsman" thing, it's also a way of saying this isn't an attack planned by their group.


I can't imagine a reason their group would do something like that - it's not as though America is denying Chechnian independence.

These two are more Columbine than OKC.
posted by Pogo_Fuzzybutt at 7:34 AM on April 19, 2013 [11 favorites]


What's with all the 7-11 jokes? All I've heard is that they tried to rob one - did the 7-11 clerk go Rambo on them or something?
posted by exhilaration at 7:34 AM on April 19, 2013


Odinsdream- that's something I've been wondering. What if they stumble over something else illegal, someone's grow room or something...is it still admissible as evidence? Or, at this point, do they just not care?
posted by Bibliogeek at 7:34 AM on April 19, 2013 [2 favorites]


Couldn't they just as easily be motivated by secular/nationalist causes as by Islam? Even if that's their religion, it may not be their motivation.

No any one of Earth's 1.6 billion Muslims are only ever motivated by one thing.
posted by shakespeherian at 7:34 AM on April 19, 2013 [32 favorites]


Amazon's Local Deal for me today: "Boston Night Tour".

Sounds like a great time, guys...
posted by Dr.Enormous at 7:35 AM on April 19, 2013 [6 favorites]


What's with all the 7-11 jokes? All I've heard is that they tried to rob one - did the 7-11 clerk go Rambo on them or something?

While many people might argue the Banality of Evil is a debunked concept, the banality of 7-11 is an absolute thing.
posted by pineappleheart at 7:35 AM on April 19, 2013 [16 favorites]


What's with all the 7-11 jokes? All I've heard is that they tried to rob one - did the 7-11 clerk go Rambo on them or something?

7-11 Surveillance.
posted by Nonsteroidal Anti-Inflammatory Drug at 7:35 AM on April 19, 2013


If people are going to make statements presented as facts in this thread, it would be really useful to also post a link to a source. (Encouraging some critical media consumption can only be a good thing at this point.)
posted by DarlingBri at 7:35 AM on April 19, 2013 [9 favorites]


Fascinating how the placement of video cameras managed to capture images of these guys. I can see placement of such cameras being encoded into building laws so that all streets are covered. Possibly interior of buildings also.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 7:36 AM on April 19, 2013 [1 favorite]


Good lord that "recent immigrants" on the front page linking to an article that says at least one "has been in the country for around a decade" is horrid misinformation. Rhaomi, please ask the mods to fix that.
posted by mediareport at 7:36 AM on April 19, 2013 [12 favorites]


Thank you very much for posting this, Rhaomi. The other thread was too large and unwieldy.
posted by zarq at 7:36 AM on April 19, 2013 [3 favorites]


What if they stumble over something else illegal, someone's grow room or something...is it still admissible as evidence? Or, at this point, do they just not care?

I really suspect they care much more about getting everyone the hell out of there alive than someone's weed.
posted by jetlagaddict at 7:36 AM on April 19, 2013 [3 favorites]


rmd: That's as of 9 or so. The original tweet was from city's 311 account.

exhilaration: The 7-11 robbery set this chain of events into motion.
posted by maryr at 7:36 AM on April 19, 2013


exhilaration: "What's with all the 7-11 jokes? "

It looks like 9/11. Nevar Forget {weeping_eagle.GIF}
posted by exogenous at 7:37 AM on April 19, 2013 [3 favorites]


I'm in NYC. This week trying to enjoy my vacation but also closely following the news. They're giving away I heart Boston shirts in Times Square and nobody seems to mind me wearing a Sox cap.

Stay safe, all of you at home.
posted by bondcliff at 7:37 AM on April 19, 2013 [7 favorites]


emjaybee: I really hope at least one conspirator is captured alive and will be able to give us some insight into their thinking.

After Boston, they were going to target REO Speedwagon & Journey. The '70s buttrock wars have begun.
posted by dr_dank at 7:37 AM on April 19, 2013 [7 favorites]


Comparing the photos the FBI released yesterday to the photos on their social sites, I'm wondering if the Boston Marathon was their fallback event.

I mean, why were they wearing Burlington Coat Factory golf clothes?

The thought scares me, a bit.
posted by Bathtub Bobsled at 7:37 AM on April 19, 2013


I'm still catching up on this morning's news. Do we know how officials came to know the names/identities of the suspects?
posted by lullaby at 7:37 AM on April 19, 2013


Can everyone stop posting things here and on twitter that they hear on police scanners? That's not what they are for. There's a reason real journalists don't ever report what they hear through there. Thank you.
posted by Potomac Avenue at 7:38 AM on April 19, 2013 [11 favorites]


The political fallout from this is going to be immense. This is Obama's 9/11.

Immigration reform is now dead. I wish it wasn't true (I have undocumented friends who are going to be screwed), but the fact that two non-native persons have waged a successful guerrilla campaign on US soil means Immigration reform is dead for at least a decade. It's just dead. I'm sorry.

Republicans (and others) are going to demand retribution against Chechen nationalists. Unless there is some kind of American military action against Chechen groups, Democrats will once again be portrayed as weak-willed terrorist sympathizers who love Muslims more than "real Americans".

Remember all the xenophobia, hatred and jingoism that happened after 9/11? Yeah, it's coming back. Maybe not as badly or as acutely, but it's coming back. Like clockwork.
posted by Avenger at 7:38 AM on April 19, 2013 [12 favorites]


I'm still catching up on this morning's news. Do we know how officials came to know the names/identities of the suspects?

I believe it was because they ID'd the one who died in the shootout.
posted by Potomac Avenue at 7:38 AM on April 19, 2013 [1 favorite]


OK, shakespeherian, I wasn't trying to be trivial, but wondering if their primary motiviation was religious in nature or simply about politics; I realize the two intertwine. But there is a difference between hating someone for being non-{your religion} and hating them for enabling the oppression of your country (for example).

And it may be none of those but be entirely personal. I just know that the media is already (cough NPR cough) leaping on the Chechan Muslims/Jihad/OMG angle and wanted to explore what other alternatives there could be.
posted by emjaybee at 7:39 AM on April 19, 2013 [2 favorites]


I really, really don't think this plot originated from Chechnya. The older brother maybe had some experience there, but this seems like something closer to the dc sniper killings-- a folie a deux with two family members that are close to each other but isolated from the community somehow.
posted by empath at 7:39 AM on April 19, 2013 [50 favorites]


Couldn't they just as easily be motivated by secular/nationalist causes as by Islam? Even if that's their religion, it may not be their motivation.
That doesn't really make any sense. How would bombing the boston marathon further Chechen independence? I heard the bombs were placed by the Russian (and some other) flag along the road, but I don't know if that's true or not.

Also, the older brother was a practicing muslim, and got his girlfriend to convert at one point. We don't know about the younger "well liked/popular" brother.
posted by delmoi at 7:39 AM on April 19, 2013 [2 favorites]


odinsdream: "hot pursuit" laws generally allow that, yes

Hot pursuit allows a search of every home in a major metropolis? That seems sketchy.

Is it maybe more likely that they are just asking if they can search and most people are letting them because holy fuck bomber?
posted by corb at 7:39 AM on April 19, 2013 [1 favorite]


From Atlantic Wire article linked above:
At this moment, heavily armed members of the military, assisted by local law enforcement, are going door-to-door in Watertown, searching every house, garage, and shed for bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev

Let me take this wildly inappropriate opportunity to be curious about procedural/civil liberty stuff!

1) How's this going searching to fly with prosecution without, like, warrants?
2) If in this process the cops stumble upon someone's huge residential pot-growing-and-DVD-pirating operation, is anyone going to care? or take notes to come back later?

Please delete if this question is a derail.
posted by nicebookrack at 7:39 AM on April 19, 2013 [7 favorites]


There's enough here to keep Alex Jones hopping for months.
posted by davebush at 7:39 AM on April 19, 2013 [9 favorites]


Immigration reform is now dead. I wish it wasn't true (I have undocumented friends who are going to be screwed), but the fact that two non-native persons have waged a successful guerrilla campaign on US soil means Immigration reform is dead for at least a decade. It's just dead. I'm sorry.

Not to call you out but this sounds to me like all those 'SHIT MCCAIN JUST WON THE ELECTION' things after he pulled Palin out of a hat and no one knew what was what.
posted by shakespeherian at 7:39 AM on April 19, 2013 [75 favorites]


I mean, these guys have been in America since they were kids and they get described as "Recent Immigrants" on Metafilter.

That is how far down the xenophobia rabbit hole we have gone.
posted by Avenger at 7:40 AM on April 19, 2013 [82 favorites]


Tomorrowful: "Since there's a police scanner link here, I'm going to just echo what Anonymous, among others, is saying on twitter: Do not publicize the addresses police are at. It enormously endangers them."
This is stupid.

What is stopping the suspect from listening in on the same online police scanner as we are? If the police have a need for confidential communications, they should have a secure comms link.
posted by brokkr at 7:40 AM on April 19, 2013 [6 favorites]


This thread is nice and all, but honestly, I kinda miss the old thread.
posted by newdaddy at 7:40 AM on April 19, 2013 [7 favorites]


From the Buzzfeed link:

"Tamerlan says he doesn't drink or smoke anymore: 'God said no alcohol.' A Muslim, he says: 'There are no values anymore,' and worries that 'people can't control themselves.'"

"Originally from Chechnya, but living in the United States since five years, Tamerlan says: 'I don't have a single American friend, I don't understand them.'"

posted by mediareport at 7:40 AM on April 19, 2013


I believe it was because they ID'd the one who died in the shootout.

Ah, that makes sense. Thanks.
posted by lullaby at 7:41 AM on April 19, 2013


Unless there is some kind of American military action against Chechen groups.

You are aware that Chechnya is in Russia, yes?
posted by empath at 7:41 AM on April 19, 2013 [27 favorites]


WBUR is reporting that UMass Dartmouth is being evacuated.
posted by chowflap at 7:41 AM on April 19, 2013


The political fallout from this is going to be immense. This is Obama's 9/11.

I do not agree, since a handful people died instead of thousands (I mean it's awful but still--long term emotional damage is caused by the ripple effects of a high number of casualties). In the end this is more likely to be Boston's Christopher Dorner.
posted by Potomac Avenue at 7:41 AM on April 19, 2013 [30 favorites]


Avenger: “The political fallout from this is going to be immense. This is Obama's 9/11.”

Over four people dead. Four people. I value every human life, and I know that the deaths of those four people was a huge loss to the world, but – if we're supposed to lock down entire cities and put up with a military police state that searches houses on a whim every single time four people die, well... we may as well just throw in the towel on democracy.

Sorry if that seems a bit extreme; I'm trying to stay balanced, but it's difficult at this point.
posted by koeselitz at 7:41 AM on April 19, 2013 [131 favorites]


I would expect they got at least one name out of the photos released last night. The shootout just confirmed it. This is an assumption only, basing it on the fact that a few people have said they recognized and didn't report.
posted by These Premises Are Alarmed at 7:41 AM on April 19, 2013


I won't be particularly surprised if the Tsarnaevs were motivated in part by the ongoing Chechnyan nightmare, but I would be shocked if it was actually coordinated with anyone over there, or indeed anyone else at all. This has all the hallmarks of two nutjobs acting on their own.
posted by Holy Zarquon's Singing Fish at 7:42 AM on April 19, 2013 [8 favorites]


I'm going to go out on a limb here and guess that the US will not be attacking Chechnya as the Russians probably would not like that very much.
posted by drezdn at 7:42 AM on April 19, 2013 [21 favorites]


I really, really don't think this plot originated from Chechnya. The older brother maybe had some experience there, but this seems like something closer to the dc sniper killings-- a folie a deux with two family members that are close to each other but isolated from the community somehow.
It doesn't sound like the younger brother was isolated from the community though. It sounded as though he was popular and well-liked in highschool. Maybe things changed in college for him somehow. He was going to UMASS Dartmouth, which is an Ivy League school.
posted by delmoi at 7:42 AM on April 19, 2013 [1 favorite]


Remember all the xenophobia, hatred and jingoism that happened after 9/11? Yeah, it's coming back. Maybe not as badly or as acutely, but it's coming back. Like clockwork.


Agreed. I've been on Reddit a lot and asking how can those blurry photos be of a "brown person". Some guy jumped all over me saying "look at that schnoz; that's Syrian". Because you know, no one except Syrian's have an enhanced nose profile.

So stupid. People forget just how crazy and angry some people are of all genders, colors, religion, and motive. Seeing there was no politcal tie in admitting they did it (or someone associated to them), they have their own motive.
posted by stormpooper at 7:42 AM on April 19, 2013 [4 favorites]


Avenger, that's left over from misinformation immediately following release of suspect names.
posted by maryr at 7:42 AM on April 19, 2013


This is moving a bit fast, but you can't just... randomly search everybody's homes in a given area, right?

There's three ways to approach this. One is the "active pursuit" principle -- if police are chasing you, just because you run into your house doesn't mean they can't follow right there and then. Second is a warrant, which can be granted via a phone call with a judge, and they likely have one standing by on the phone ready to rubber stamp any request.

The third way is to just knock on doors and ask to come in. That will take care of 99 percent of the cases.
posted by Cool Papa Bell at 7:42 AM on April 19, 2013 [13 favorites]


1) How's this going searching to fly with prosecution without, like, warrants?

He won't be prosecuted for hiding from the police.

2) If in this process the cops stumble upon someone's huge residential pot-growing-and-DVD-pirating operation, is anyone going to care? or take notes to come back later?

They may well remember the house, but they'll need a real warrant to conduct a search for crimes unrelated to pursuit of a suspect.
posted by Etrigan at 7:42 AM on April 19, 2013 [8 favorites]


This is moving a bit fast, but you can't just... randomly search everybody's homes in a given area, right?

Undoubtedly tucked away in the Homeland Security Act somewhere.
posted by jimmythefish at 7:42 AM on April 19, 2013 [3 favorites]


You are aware that Chechnya is in Russia, yes?

Well, opinions differ somewhat vociferously on that point...
posted by Dr.Enormous at 7:42 AM on April 19, 2013 [27 favorites]


I mean, these guys have been in America since they were kids and they get described as "Recent Immigrants" on Metafilter.

That is how far down the xenophobia rabbit hole we have gone.


Again, people, as recently as 9:00 this morning news outlets, including NPR were reporting that they had been told the two brothers had been in the U.S. for only a year.

That has since been clarified, but that was all over the news two hours ago.
posted by devinemissk at 7:42 AM on April 19, 2013 [8 favorites]


Boston Police Dept. ‏@Boston_Police 59s
UPDATE: Vehicle (MA Plate: 316-ES9) found unoccupied. Car being processed for evidence by authorities. pic.twitter.com/c4cDHrgd4E
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 7:42 AM on April 19, 2013 [2 favorites]


The political fallout from this is going to be immense. This is Obama's 9/11.

So everyone rallies around him and he gets a huge upsurge in popularity? Okay by me.
posted by Pater Aletheias at 7:42 AM on April 19, 2013 [33 favorites]


Immigration reform is now dead. I wish it wasn't true (I have undocumented friends who are going to be screwed), but the fact that two non-native persons have waged a successful guerrilla campaign on US soil means Immigration reform is dead for at least a decade. It's just dead. I'm sorry.

MAYBE, but this frankly sounds sort of hysterical to me. As someone noted in the other thread, Carlos Arredondo is also an immigrant.
posted by showbiz_liz at 7:43 AM on April 19, 2013 [25 favorites]


Is it maybe more likely that they are just asking if they can search and most people are letting them because holy fuck bomber?

According to a friend of mine in Watertown who "woke up to a camouflaged SWAT team ringing [his] doorbell and politely asking to search the premises," yes, that's exactly right.
posted by ook at 7:43 AM on April 19, 2013 [23 favorites]


UMASS Dartmouth is not an Ivy League school.
posted by MisantropicPainforest at 7:43 AM on April 19, 2013 [32 favorites]


Over four people dead. Four people. I value every human life, and I know that the deaths of those four people was a huge loss to the world, but
Yeah, the fertilizer explosion seems to have killed at least 10 times as many people.
posted by delmoi at 7:43 AM on April 19, 2013 [5 favorites]


He was going to UMASS Dartmouth, which is an Ivy League school.

No, it is not. Dartmouth College is in Hanover, New Hampshire.
posted by one more dead town's last parade at 7:43 AM on April 19, 2013 [2 favorites]


NPR at one point stated that police had IDed the younger one by DL photo before the robbery. Don't know if that's accurate.

NPR is also saying that they have (had?) a building in Watertown surrounded and that they think maybe Dzhokar is inside?

Finally, Odinsdream, the police can always ask your permission to search your home. Hot pursuit absolutely doesn't apply here. They're not kicking in doors.
posted by kavasa at 7:43 AM on April 19, 2013


How's this going searching to fly with prosecution without, like, warrants?

I don't think they're going to arrest him.
posted by empath at 7:43 AM on April 19, 2013 [1 favorite]


I actually like the twitter/scanner posts (that don't name locations that could put police in danger), because I am at work in Australia, and a whoooolleee lot of sites from which I could follow this story are blocked on the work pc.

But meti is not :]
posted by Burgatron at 7:43 AM on April 19, 2013 [2 favorites]


He was going to UMASS Dartmouth, which is an Ivy League school.

Pretty sure the Ivy Dartmouth is in New Hampshire-- I think this is a state school.
posted by jetlagaddict at 7:43 AM on April 19, 2013


Obama's 9/11? Sounds like they arrived on Bush's watch.
posted by davebush at 7:43 AM on April 19, 2013 [8 favorites]


I value every human life, and I know that the deaths of those four people was a huge loss to the world, but – if we're supposed to lock down entire cities and put up with a military police state that searches houses on a whim every single time four people die, well... we may as well just throw in the towel on democracy.

Considering that the alternative is "embroil the country in a 10-year war that results in pointless American casualties and costs trillions of dollars", I'm not sure I mind this turn of events quite so much. Especially since the motivation for the lockdown is also partly due to "guys there's a nutball running around your town y'all are probably better off staying inside and watching Maury because it'll be way safer."
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 7:44 AM on April 19, 2013 [16 favorites]


I mean, these guys have been in America since they were kids and they get described as "Recent Immigrants" on Metafilter.

That is how far down the xenophobia rabbit hole we have gone.


You may be confusing lack of knowledge with a "rabbit hole." This is a story that is developing very quickly. Maybe resist the urge to draw conclusions for a while.
posted by OmieWise at 7:44 AM on April 19, 2013 [11 favorites]


Cool Papa Bell: “The third way is to just knock on doors and ask to come in. That will take care of 99 percent of the cases.”

"We had probable cause, your honor. See, when we asked to come in, he shouted for us to leave him alone, and he sounded very agitated."
posted by koeselitz at 7:44 AM on April 19, 2013 [1 favorite]


He was going to UMASS Dartmouth, which is an Ivy League school.

UMass Dartmouth != Dartmouth College
posted by maryr at 7:44 AM on April 19, 2013


UMASS Dartmouth, which is an Ivy League school

No, that Dartmouth is different.
posted by These Premises Are Alarmed at 7:44 AM on April 19, 2013


“The political fallout from this is going to be immense. This is Obama's 9/11.”

Nonsense, I'm sure the GOP will be understanding and realize the problem is the bombers themselves, not Democrat President.

How's this going searching to fly with prosecution without, like, warrants?

I don't think cops need a warrant when in active pursuit.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 7:45 AM on April 19, 2013


Yeah, I don't think this will impact immigration reform.
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 7:45 AM on April 19, 2013


The internet's shameful false ID
posted by Artw at 7:45 AM on April 19, 2013 [6 favorites]


No. Dartmouth College up in New Hampshire is the Ivy League School. UMASS Dartmouth is located on the south coast of MASS--part of the UMASS system.
My mistake. I was just reporting what what my sources were telling me.
posted by delmoi at 7:45 AM on April 19, 2013 [10 favorites]


Immigration reform is now dead

Maybe. If immigration reform was going to work it would be because enough republicans thought it was in their best interests to let it pass. I doubt someone whose vote would be swayed by immigration reform would go to the democrats, though it could open republicans up to a right wing challenge.
posted by shothotbot at 7:46 AM on April 19, 2013 [1 favorite]


"Here and Now" NPR reporter Robin Young on NPR saying she personally knows one of the suspects?
posted by 445supermag at 7:46 AM on April 19, 2013 [2 favorites]


I don't think cops need a warrant when in active pursuit.

This is not active pursuit. It's a manhunt.
posted by DarlingBri at 7:46 AM on April 19, 2013


WCVB TV are saying the suspect they have on the ground is Dzhokar Tsarnaev. Edit: but the scanners are apparently saying it's a 60-70 year old man.
posted by tracicle at 7:46 AM on April 19, 2013 [1 favorite]


> I mean, these guys have been in America since they were kids and they get described as "Recent Immigrants" on Metafilter. That is how far down the xenophobia rabbit hole we have gone.

You may be confusing lack of knowledge with a "rabbit hole."


Seconding this - for a while NPR was reporting that the brothers had only been in this country for one year rather than ten. some people may still be operating on that report.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 7:46 AM on April 19, 2013 [1 favorite]


Well, opinions differ somewhat vociferously on that point...

Regardless, I'm sure Putin will happily massacre a bunch more civilians there if Obama asked nicely. The us can't do anything worse to Chechnya than the Russians have.
posted by empath at 7:47 AM on April 19, 2013 [8 favorites]


I live two towns over from UMASS Dartmouth - a very nice state school my Dad went to. It's not a very large campus.
posted by Slap*Happy at 7:47 AM on April 19, 2013


Is Robin Young the one whose relative went to school with the younger suspect?
posted by drezdn at 7:47 AM on April 19, 2013


Yes.
posted by ocherdraco at 7:47 AM on April 19, 2013


Has pix of him with his prom date.
posted by maryr at 7:47 AM on April 19, 2013


"Here and Now" NPR reporter Robin Young on NPR saying she personally knows one of the suspects?

Yeah, I heard that this morning -- her nephew went to high school with him and was at a graduation party for her nephew (that she attended), so she believes she has met him.
posted by devinemissk at 7:47 AM on April 19, 2013


"Here and Now" NPR reporter Robin Young on NPR saying she personally knows one of the suspects?

According to The Guardian he was a friend of her nephew.
posted by EndsOfInvention at 7:48 AM on April 19, 2013


Thanks for the answers, Etrigan!

Linguists of MeFi, how does one pronounce the suspects' names? Is there a video up with them said correctly?
posted by nicebookrack at 7:48 AM on April 19, 2013




They may well remember the house, but they'll need a real warrant to conduct a search for crimes unrelated to pursuit of a suspect.

I think the question is, could they obtain said warrant by saying, "I saw it while looking for the bomber."
posted by corb at 7:48 AM on April 19, 2013 [1 favorite]


Media is being pushed back repeatedly.
posted by SuzySmith at 7:48 AM on April 19, 2013


The cops have somebody now. On the ground. May have a "device" and a "transmitter" on him. They're calling for EOD teams.
posted by BobbyVan at 7:49 AM on April 19, 2013 [1 favorite]


"Over four people dead. Four people. I value every human life, and I know that the deaths of those four people was a huge loss to the world, but – if we're supposed to lock down entire cities and put up with a military police state that searches houses on a whim every single time four people die, well... we may as well just throw in the towel on democracy."

YES. you have a guy on the run, possibly wearing explosive vest and seemingly willing to kill as many as he can, and you want search warrants for every house before the police enter? wow.
Democracy will not survive unless there is some give on silly notions on what the authjorities should, can, and ought to do.
posted by Postroad at 7:49 AM on April 19, 2013 [11 favorites]


Also, I believe it's the third suspect who supposedly attends UMASS.
posted by FelliniBlank at 7:50 AM on April 19, 2013


Robin Young posted a picture on Twitter of her nephew and the suspect.

Okay, WHY? I can't see any reason to do this other than wanting people to pay attention to your extremely peripheral role in a really awful situation. Just ugh. I think the internet has played a really interesting and probably ultimately important role in this last week's events, but a lot of it is really gross, too.
posted by something something at 7:50 AM on April 19, 2013 [19 favorites]


Mod note: Nixed "recent" from "recent immigrants" since its early, that's a hold over from what was being said when Rhaomi drafted the post earlier, and it seems like it could end up being a disorienting sticking point for a lot of folks. Carry on.
posted by cortex (staff) at 7:50 AM on April 19, 2013 [12 favorites]


"Immigration Reform" is the code phrase for the parties fighting for the huge hispanic vote. It's not likely dead or dying.
posted by klarck at 7:51 AM on April 19, 2013 [30 favorites]


Also, I believe it's the third suspect who supposedly attends UMASS.

Maybe this thread is moving too fast, I don't remember hearing about a third suspect, links?
posted by showbiz_liz at 7:51 AM on April 19, 2013


This is not active pursuit. It's a manhunt.

I did not realize there were separate terms for these.
posted by psoas at 7:51 AM on April 19, 2013


I think the question is, could they obtain said warrant by saying, "I saw it while looking for the bomber."

In the Homicide book, the author said that police tend to ignore other crimes when investigating a murder.
posted by drezdn at 7:51 AM on April 19, 2013 [2 favorites]


Suspect is wearing a "vest". Device in his hand. Speculation it's a "dead man's switch".
posted by BobbyVan at 7:52 AM on April 19, 2013


Damn ... this is exhausting. Had 3 hours of sleep and would like to get breakfast/lunch, but locked down and relegated to TV and MeFi. In good company, though, here.
posted by ericb at 7:52 AM on April 19, 2013


Is this from the scanner? Cite?
posted by RolandOfEld at 7:52 AM on April 19, 2013


Re: "Recent Immigrants":
NYT: The two suspects [are identified as] brothers: Dzhokhar A. Tsarnaev [“white cap”], 19 (at large) and Tamerlan Tsarnaev [“black cap”], 26 (died in hospital).

Officials said that the two men were of Chechen origin. . .

The family lived briefly in [Kyrgyzstan, then] Dagestan . . . before moving to the United States in 2002.

A spokesman for Ramzan A. Kadyrov, leader of Chechnya. . . told Interfax that, according to preliminary information, the family “moved to a different region of the Russian Federation from Chechnya many years ago. . . and from there moved to the United States, where [they] received residency permits.

“In such a way, the figures who are being spoken about did not live in Chechnya at a mature age, and if they became ‘bad guys,’ then this is a question that should be put to the people who raised them”.
posted by Herodios at 7:53 AM on April 19, 2013


BobbyVan: Source?
posted by Potomac Avenue at 7:53 AM on April 19, 2013 [1 favorite]


I think the question is, could they obtain said warrant by saying, "I saw it while looking for the bomber."

If they only found evidence because of an illegal search, I believe it would fall under the fruit of the poisonous tree doctrine.
posted by burnmp3s at 7:53 AM on April 19, 2013 [1 favorite]


Over four people dead. Four people. I value every human life, and I know that the deaths of those four people was a huge loss to the world, but – if we're supposed to lock down entire cities and put up with a military police state that searches houses on a whim every single time four people die, well... we may as well just throw in the towel on democracy.


But it isn't just the four people dead, is it? It's the 180 other injured casualties, and it's the ongoing terror of knowing there are people who are willing kill anyone and who are actively trying to kill more people on the run. What would you rather they have done-- told everyone in Boston to continue on their daily business? These guys had bombs. They were trying to set off more bombs. I have friends who are in Cambridge and Somerville right now. They're okay with the lockdown.
posted by jetlagaddict at 7:53 AM on April 19, 2013 [18 favorites]


This is not active pursuit. It's a manhunt.

I did not realize there were separate terms for these.


Darling Bri's point is that active pursuit implies that they have a visual on the suspect and are after him, while a manhunt is searching for someone who's location police don't know. Subtle but important.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 7:53 AM on April 19, 2013 [14 favorites]


In the Homicide book, the author said that police tend to ignore other crimes when investigating a murder

Homicide cops get paid to solve murders, they don't get paid to do the narcotics guys jobs.
posted by empath at 7:53 AM on April 19, 2013 [2 favorites]


Media all on ground, now being told to move again.
posted by SuzySmith at 7:53 AM on April 19, 2013


Scanner. Now they're moving a truck around to "block any potential blast."
posted by BobbyVan at 7:53 AM on April 19, 2013




Thanks for doing this, Rhaomi.
posted by anotherpanacea at 7:53 AM on April 19, 2013


It's from the scanner.
posted by inire at 7:53 AM on April 19, 2013


active pursuit - you know where he is, you're following him
manhunt - you don't know where he is, you're looking for him
posted by desjardins at 7:54 AM on April 19, 2013 [2 favorites]


drezdn: “In the Homicide book, the author said that police tend to ignore other crimes when investigating a murder.”

It's nice to know that we can rely on the good tendencies of the police, in lieu of legal protections.
posted by koeselitz at 7:54 AM on April 19, 2013 [3 favorites]


This is not active pursuit. It's a manhunt.


It is a useful distinction- but is it a legal one? I don't know. I do know that watching this whole thing is like tumbling into one of those very long hypothetical questions you might have when discussing civil liberties and how they are affected.."So, what if, there was, like, some crazy guy running around and the cops were looking for him- busting into houses and stuff and then what if they find something else instead?..."
posted by Bibliogeek at 7:54 AM on April 19, 2013


Kerry Sanders on NBC confirms he sees a man in a "turquoise shirt" lying motionless on the ground.
posted by BobbyVan at 7:54 AM on April 19, 2013


This is moving a bit fast, but you can't just... randomly search everybody's homes in a given area, right?
posted by odinsdream at 9:32 AM on 4/19
[2 favorites +] [!]


They can ask to search. And I expect a refusal would lead to a fair amount of discomfort for the refuser.

And this is one of those high-risk situations where a lot of latitude will be afforded to law enforcement ... regardless of whether one agrees with that.
posted by Unified Theory at 7:54 AM on April 19, 2013 [1 favorite]


Please don't post scanner updates in this thread.
posted by Potomac Avenue at 7:54 AM on April 19, 2013 [14 favorites]


Yeah, the fertilizer explosion seems to have killed at least 10 times as many people.

Yeah my best friend got a grad degree from Harvard so I called him this week, asking him if he had any Boston folks he was worried about."

He said: "No, I don't have any folks I know up there any more, and I don't have any folks I know in Waco, TX either."

An example as to why he's my best friend.
posted by angrycat at 7:55 AM on April 19, 2013 [5 favorites]


Please don't post scanner updates in this thread.

If I missed a mod policy statment, which is quite possible, then ignore me.

Otherwise I'm totally for posting scanner updates of the critical and game ending type in the thread.
posted by RolandOfEld at 7:55 AM on April 19, 2013 [8 favorites]


Globe twitter says Mayor Menino about to give brief presser.
posted by Chrysostom at 7:55 AM on April 19, 2013


They're at the Arsenal Mall in Watertown. We took my nephew to the Bugaboo Creek for his birthday there a few years back.
posted by Slap*Happy at 7:55 AM on April 19, 2013


I've been following this story on the police scanner and twitter, nytimes and boston globe, then once at work via mefi - for over 8 hours.

I've not read one varfied report of a 3rd suspect.

there seemed to be some confusion when the gun fight happened, that a suspect had died, that a suspect was captured, and a suspect got away. My guess is this how the '3rd suspect' came about.

But you know, this is just my guess.
posted by Burgatron at 7:56 AM on April 19, 2013


This Is What It Looks Like When the Police Shut Down a City

OK, frankly, there's a lot of upsetting stuff going on here, but posting a picture of someone looking timidly out her curtained window (halfway down) just seems particularly gross to me.
posted by psoas at 7:56 AM on April 19, 2013 [3 favorites]


My request is based on the confusion it causes, and the unreliability of the scanner. It is not news, and it is often inaccurate. People can listen to it if they want.
posted by Potomac Avenue at 7:57 AM on April 19, 2013


Younger brother at UMass-Dartmouth fits earlier suggestions he had gone to UMass-Amherst - people just remembered the wrong campus.
posted by maryr at 7:57 AM on April 19, 2013


Oh shit if they moved here in 2002 that is not good news in terms of U.S. freakout
posted by angrycat at 7:57 AM on April 19, 2013


Kerry Sanders on NBC says snipers have taken position on surrounding roofs.
posted by BobbyVan at 7:58 AM on April 19, 2013


Oh, and before this digresses into one of those tangents:

People who kill other people indiscriminately aren't Islamic, Christian, Jewish, Atheists, or anything else. They're assholes. That is all.

What they proclaim to identify themselves as has nothing to do with the actions they take. The motivations behind the actions can only be speculated on by those that witness it, and by those who perform said actions. Wherever they were born/raised, they would have found some extreme element to justify their unquenchable zealousness for... Well, that certain something some of us pursue without rational thought.

I'm Catholic. This morning, I put on my blue tie, yelled at my daughter for leaving partially eaten grapes on the couch, and put nutmeg in my coffee. If any of you say, "Yeah, that sounds like the typical crap Catholics do," go drink hot candle wax, dipshit.

If any religion programmed all of its people to kill when they otherwise wouldn't, there wouldn't be any of us left.

Also, atheists saying "this is what religion makes people do," is no different than the whackadoodles who say, "This is what [other religion] does to the world. Smite them!"
posted by Bathtub Bobsled at 7:58 AM on April 19, 2013 [117 favorites]


The only suggestion I heard of a third suspect between 7 and 10 this morning was Dina whatshername on NPR.
posted by maryr at 7:58 AM on April 19, 2013




Over four people dead. Four people. I value every human life, and I know that the deaths of those four people was a huge loss to the world, but – if we're supposed to lock down entire cities and put up with a military police state that searches houses on a whim every single time four people die, well... we may as well just throw in the towel on democracy.

This is in fact when our principles are challenged. Do we really believe in legal protections? In innocent until proven guilty? Then we do not believe in mandatory lockdowns and mandatory house-to-house searches and grabbing everyone being suspicious with a cellphone or a shovel or a bag.

That is Iraq-level shit.
posted by corb at 7:59 AM on April 19, 2013 [7 favorites]


RolandOfEld: “Otherwise I'm totally for posting scanner updates of the critical and game ending type in the thread.”

People are free to post what they want, just like we're free to discourage them from doing so. It pays, however, to note that: (a) everything sounds critical and game ending over a police scanner; and (b) I was listening to this ten hours ago, and it sounded absolutely as game ending as it does now, probably more so. Hell, the whole "second suspect on the ground at gunpoint!" thing – how many times has that been announced on the scanner so far? Five times? Six?

Actually, thinking about that, I'm now worried about how many people the Boston Police Department (National Guard, Marines, etc) have had "on the ground at gunpoint" over the past ten hours.
posted by koeselitz at 7:59 AM on April 19, 2013 [3 favorites]


Oh shit if they moved here in 2002 that is not good news in terms of U.S. freakout

As pointed out above, maybe we can blame it on Bush like you blame the lame purchasing system on whoever had your job before you and is safely out of the company.
posted by shothotbot at 7:59 AM on April 19, 2013


People can listen to it if they want.

Not everyone. Like I said, if the signal to noise ratio is decent I'm for it, and what BobbyVan posted didn't seem like idle chatter. I enjoy posts like this because, for all their problems, they're often better than the news in numerous ways.
posted by RolandOfEld at 7:59 AM on April 19, 2013 [1 favorite]




Otherwise I'm totally for posting scanner updates of the critical and game ending type in the thread.

NPR is repeatedly saying that the police are asking people not give out important info, as it endangers them and possibly giving the suspect information. So FYI.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 8:00 AM on April 19, 2013


Otherwise I'm totally for posting scanner updates of the critical and game ending type in the thread

Almost all the worst misinformation I've seen since last night was from people trying to interpret what's going on with the scanner. You do not have enough information to make sense of anything they are saying.
posted by empath at 8:00 AM on April 19, 2013 [2 favorites]


Oh shit if they moved here in 2002 that is not good news in terms of U.S. freakout
I respectfully suggest that good news in terms of a U.S. freakout doesn't exist.
posted by fullerine at 8:01 AM on April 19, 2013 [4 favorites]


In the end this is more likely to be Boston's Christopher Dorner.

Very much not; the moral ambiguity that a lot of people felt about Dorner isn't there.
posted by jaduncan at 8:01 AM on April 19, 2013 [1 favorite]



Oh shit if they moved here in 2002 that is not good news in terms of U.S. freakout


What does this mean? The younger kid was like nine in 2002, I don't think they moved here to be a baby terror cell or anything.
posted by sweetkid at 8:02 AM on April 19, 2013 [9 favorites]


Thanks, BobbyVan. Never thought I'd say this, but thank god CBS brought the sanity there.
posted by koeselitz at 8:02 AM on April 19, 2013


On the almost certainly wrong "3rd suspect" thing. In the previous thread, this was reported:

"My mother is watching MSNBC and telling me that they have one suspect cornered and another on an Amtrak train."

And then within a few minutes, everything bounced over to this thread, so that was about the last thing I saw.
posted by FelliniBlank at 8:02 AM on April 19, 2013


Thank you Bobby Van.
posted by Potomac Avenue at 8:02 AM on April 19, 2013


Then we do not believe in mandatory lockdowns and mandatory house-to-house searches and grabbing everyone being suspicious with a cellphone or a shovel or a bag.

That is Iraq-level shit.


I'm not sure one can really say right now what the hell is going on with enough certainty to be legitimately worried that our (collective American) rights are in peril.
posted by OmieWise at 8:02 AM on April 19, 2013 [5 favorites]


This is Obama's 9/11.

I do not agree, .... In the end this is more likely to be Boston's Christopher Dorner.
Whatever the crime is, the response is Obama's Patriot Act. More civil liberties out the window.

My family lived for three weeks in the center of the DC sniper madness. My kids were on lockdown for recess at school, but they went to school, and I went to work, and the entire region was terrorized, but it did not become a police state. Snipers on people's sheds and orders for an entire metro area not to congregate or leave your home is not ok. I get that they are reacting to an immediate risk and if I were in Boston I would not choose to open my door but this is a very frightening precedent.

How long does the lockdown last if they don't find him tonight? Tomorrow? Next week? How long until the next lockdown when another criminal is on the loose? How many outstanding warrants are there in the Boston metro area?
posted by headnsouth at 8:02 AM on April 19, 2013 [18 favorites]


This is moving a bit fast, but you can't just... randomly search everybody's homes in a given area, right?

Police can conduct a warantless search when there are "exigent circumstances." Active pursuit is definitely exigent circumstances: you're chasing a suspect, he runs into someone's house, police follow, bust in and search. I am unclear on the rules for a manhunt since you need to be able to take, for example, tracker dogs through people's property. Regardless, there is no current evidence police are doing knock-less searches or searching without occupier permission. I imagine the city is feeling feeling pretty fucking cooperative.
posted by DarlingBri at 8:02 AM on April 19, 2013 [7 favorites]


Immigration reform is now dead. I wish it wasn't true (I have undocumented friends who are going to be screwed), but the fact that two non-native persons have waged a successful guerrilla campaign on US soil means Immigration reform is dead for at least a decade. It's just dead. I'm sorry.
This came up in the other thread. It makes absolutely zero sense.

When the Benghazi attacks happened, there were people (Obama supporters) who thought it was going to cost Obama the election for some reason.

But like with the 2008 election, this doesn't change anything at all about the politics. The republicans believe they must appeal to Hispanics in order to survive as a viable political party in the future. This attack doesn't change any of that.

It might make some people more afraid in general, but not enough to have much of an impact on people's support for immigration reform, especially since these two seem to have been legal immigrants anyway.

People need to stop assuming that the American people are total cowards who will vote republicans and/or support arbitrary conservative policies whenever a terrorist attack occurs.

(also this is not a 'successful' guerrilla campaign - it didn't achieve any political objectives, which is the point)
posted by delmoi at 8:03 AM on April 19, 2013 [13 favorites]


On Robin Young posting photos of her relative with the suspect -- I don't know how I feel about her posting pics, myself, but earlier this morning I heard her on the Today Show emphasizing how nice and normal she felt this kid was, how well-liked he was in the school community, etc. I got the strong impression she was trying to stave off people making stupid stereotypical assumptions about what the kid must be like, and also that she was genuinely perplexed as to how he had gotten involved.

Maybe she thinks he was coerced (she did not say that literally on the air, but I wondered given her tone) and so she wants the public to see another side of him. Or maybe she wants to remind people in general that terrorists aren't some supervillain caricature -- they're humans with friends and families. Or maybe she's just being an attention whore. I don't know.
posted by BlueJae at 8:03 AM on April 19, 2013 [12 favorites]


Cable news is almost equally full of speculation as random twitter accounts listening to a scanner. Don't believe what they say they heard from "a source" and especially don't believe what people say they heard CNN say.
posted by Potomac Avenue at 8:04 AM on April 19, 2013 [1 favorite]


Snipers on people's sheds and orders for an entire metro area not to congregate or leave your home is not ok. I get that they are reacting to an immediate risk and if I were in Boston I would not choose to open my door but this is a very frightening precedent.

I get the concern about civil liberties, but locking down an area during an active manhunt for a clearly dangerous suspect just makes sense. This like predicting that a travel ban during a blizzard is the end of American freedom.
posted by Bulgaroktonos at 8:04 AM on April 19, 2013 [47 favorites]




nicebookrack: 1) How's this going searching to fly with prosecution without, like, warrants?

I have no idea and I'm not going to even try to address this question but I can tell you how it worked on the ground.

I live 2 blocks from the shootout. A little after 4 am, 2 SWAT guys knocked on our door, announced that they were police, asked if they could come it, I said yes of course, please come in and they walked through every room in our apartment. They opened all the closet doors and were very thorough but very brief. They were clearly looking for a person and not distracted by any of the stuff in our apartment or distracted by comments we made to them, such as thanks, good luck. I don't know what they would have done if we had refused, but knowing what was going on, we welcomed them. That's pretty much it.
posted by bobobox at 8:05 AM on April 19, 2013 [76 favorites]


Re Robin Young picture: I thought it was nice follow up to her interview with her nephew this morning. It felt like she was kind of connecting the name with the face during the conversation.
posted by maryr at 8:05 AM on April 19, 2013


the police are asking people not give out important info

Ah, the over-mods. Fair enough and legit if they're concerned.
posted by RolandOfEld at 8:05 AM on April 19, 2013


Otherwise I'm totally for posting scanner updates of the critical and game ending type in the thread


The problem with "critical and game ending" scanner information is that you don't know how to correctly identify it until the game is over.
posted by MCMikeNamara at 8:05 AM on April 19, 2013 [3 favorites]


I really, really don't think this plot originated from Chechnya. The older brother maybe had some experience there, but this seems like something closer to the dc sniper killings-- a folie a deux with two family members that are close to each other but isolated from the community somehow.

It doesn't seem to me like these guys have outside support if they're robbing 7-11s for getaway money. Previous Chechen terrorist incidents usually have involved suicide attacks or well-planned hostage incidents. And ethnic Russians, Russian nationals, and/or demands of the Russian government. A politically earnest loose-cannon scrabbling for an exit strategy seems more likely to me.
posted by CBrachyrhynchos at 8:05 AM on April 19, 2013 [1 favorite]


This kid was actively seeking to murder more people. It's not like he was fleeing from a drive by shooting or an armed robbery. This is somebody who maimed hundreds of people, killed two cops, and was armed with explosives and guns and was murdering people indiscriminately and actively.

So yes, putting a city on lockdown and searching house to house is warranted, and I'll be shocked if very many people are upset about it. What they would be upset about is letting this kid escape so he can murder again.
posted by empath at 8:06 AM on April 19, 2013 [9 favorites]




The biggest consequence here may be the end of publicly available police scanner feeds.

Idiots posting uninformed bullshit online, and moreso the national media running with unverified and unverifiable said bullshit in real time is shocking.
posted by T.D. Strange at 8:07 AM on April 19, 2013


Given that we don't know exactly what is happening, I think we should wait a bit on the "the Constitution is being shredded" meme.
posted by Chrysostom at 8:07 AM on April 19, 2013 [6 favorites]


The political fallout from this is going to be immense. This is Obama's 9/11.

Perps likely caught within a week. No critical failures of government branches. No diversion of resources to other follies.

The fallout of this will be that it will serve of a big giant example of how it is supposed to be done.
posted by srboisvert at 8:07 AM on April 19, 2013 [82 favorites]


More for folks looking for a source about the vests:

A law enforcement source told the Globe that an explosive trigger was found on Tamerlan Tsarnaev’s body at the morgue.
posted by mediareport at 8:07 AM on April 19, 2013


This is somebody who maimed hundreds of people, killed two cops, and was armed with explosives and guns and was murdering people indiscriminately and actively.

Killed two cops? Did MBTA cop die?
posted by maryr at 8:07 AM on April 19, 2013


Linguists of MeFi, how does one pronounce the suspects' names?

Not a linguist, but Robin Young's nephew, who characterized Dzokhar as a close friend from high school, consistently pronounced the name "Joe-har". His NPR interlocutor pronounced it "Joe-kar". The young man did not correct the elder.
posted by mwhybark at 8:08 AM on April 19, 2013 [2 favorites]


When all is said and done, I think the bombing itself - apart from for the victims - will turn out to be less of a landmark event than the reporting of the bombing and subsequent police investigation.

There are parallels - when Mossad teams killed Mahmoud al-Mabhouh in Dubai in 2010 it was arguably the first time proper spy agency actions had been captured, dissected, analysed and disseminated to the wider public. It was the first of its kind. When the first Gulf War took place, the embedding of media within the military and the speed at which information flowed back home via 24 hour news channels brought a step change in how the media reported war. That was evident by 2003 when Iraq was invaded again.

But now, when smart phones and social media are common currency, we have entered a new era. One in which the flow of information has reached epic and epidemic proportions. News anchors must say something to fill the time on air. Producers cannot switch to other stories and come back when news has changed because fresh news is measured in fractions of a minute, and must compete with large social media platforms like Twitter whose reputations are not at stake if their content is incorrect. The flow of information itself has changed - it is still largely coming from the mainstream media by volume but increasingly the scoops are coming from social media - the eyewitness videos and photos, the updates and alerts - as well as the aggregation and analysis.

Reddit and 4chan's somewhat unedifying attempts to track the bomber are part of that story. But a more important factor has been the extent to which the wider media have actively chosen to lower the barriers for fact checking in a bid to get news out more quickly. Social media at once provides them with titbits and clues, it allows consumers to find news more quickly, but it has exposed the underlying competition for news provision that has been slowly choking the industry for several years. Put simply, the leading news channels have reacted by making a conscious decision to sacrifice quality for speed, expertise for immediacy, facts for accounts.

More clearly than any recent event I can think of, the Boston bombing has exposed what the future news media landscape looks like in the era of social media - where we gain and where we lose; how we value timeliness and some later aggregation over more deliberate composition and structure of our news. How we become both consumers and contributors.

We have also seen how terror can and will work, too. I'm not in Boston, so this is perhaps easy for me to say. But in the areas where the suspected bomber is believed to be, residents are likely safer than they were last week with the level of police presence. And yet, like the news cycle, the reaction is characterised by extremes. Heightened emotions and fears, a sense that everything is so close. Ignorance is no longer bliss. We can chart our proximity to terror more easily - through Twitter, Google Maps, Facebook. We can indulge our fears more easily by listening in, tracking, scanning, checking and following. We gain one perspective but lose distance.

Long term also the pattern of these events and the way they have been reported makes the US more, not less attractive for terrorists even if the risk of capture or death has also increased. The same is true to a lesser degree for other developed countries. I hope that prediction is wrong, but if terrorism is measured by impact, eyeballs and column inches then social media-heavy societies are attractive targets. The obvious point was made in a roundabout way by Syrian rebels in a message laden with irony: Boston Bombings Represent a Sorrowful Scene of What Happens in Syria Every Day. Do Accept Our Condolences.
posted by MuffinMan at 8:09 AM on April 19, 2013 [80 favorites]


but this is a very frightening precedent.

No it isn't.
posted by OmieWise at 8:10 AM on April 19, 2013 [14 favorites]


Infographic.
posted by The White Hat at 8:10 AM on April 19, 2013 [35 favorites]


In the interview posted earlier, his classmate from high school said that they called him "Johar" in school, but I think his actually name is pronounced more like "Joe-kar" or "Djoe-kar".
posted by peacheater at 8:10 AM on April 19, 2013


Tweet from a Guardian reporter:
@AdamGabbatt Officer to reporters: "Guys if you knew what was happening you wouldn't be standing there right now" #watertown
posted by EndsOfInvention at 8:10 AM on April 19, 2013 [2 favorites]


See how persuasive rank assertion can be?
posted by OmieWise at 8:10 AM on April 19, 2013


In every big city, every day there are people looking to murder more people. Labeling people terrorists doesn't help, they are criminals just the same as gangsters or school shooters, etc.
posted by JJ86 at 8:11 AM on April 19, 2013 [1 favorite]


Note I don't think anybody should freakout because they came here in 2002; it's just that I'm anticipating the reductive reasoning of "they came here post 9/11 to blow up more shit." And yeah, not so great to be like: U.S. WILL HULK SMASH but shit, we've lived through this and we know how irrational this stuff can get.
posted by angrycat at 8:11 AM on April 19, 2013


They moved here in 2002 when we were at the height of Islamophobia? Seems strange.
posted by dances_with_sneetches at 8:12 AM on April 19, 2013


mwhybark: "Robin Young's nephew, who characterized Dzokhar as a close friend from high school, consistently pronounced the name "Joe-har". His NPR interlocutor pronounced it "Joe-kar". The young man did not correct the elder."

They're both kinda wrong and kinda right. The kh is pronounced like the ch in Scottish "loch".
posted by brokkr at 8:12 AM on April 19, 2013 [7 favorites]


My family lived for three weeks in the center of the DC sniper madness... Snipers on people's sheds and orders for an entire metro area not to congregate or leave your home is not ok.

Not really unprecedented, is it? There was a manhunt for an escaped criminal in Bethesda once, and the local cops came around my school and politely asked us not the leave the set shop and to lock all the doors. One dude, unarmed, had not hurt or killed anyone recently. If there were someone casually dropping bombs off around DC, a town that has a substantially number of snipers on the rooftops anyway, I bet there would be similar restrictions in place. What I remember from the sniper attacks was the constant fear. The cops in Boston are trying to minimize any further civilian casualties, and I respect that.
posted by jetlagaddict at 8:13 AM on April 19, 2013 [4 favorites]


The more we hear about the suspects from people who know them, the more absolutely normal they sound. Source: Boston.com live twitter feed.
posted by Potomac Avenue at 8:13 AM on April 19, 2013 [1 favorite]


Thing is, for all the police scanner stuff that was misinterpreted or just wrong, the posts from that were saying "stay the fuck out of Watertown; it's a damn war zone" long before any of the official news sources last night.

So, that right there is the good that comes along with the bad.
posted by Dr.Enormous at 8:14 AM on April 19, 2013 [2 favorites]


Effectively, you have alleged killers on the run with guns and bombs, and people trying to stop them from doing that. It's a warzone - civillians do not belong in a warzone. What alternatives do you propose that would keep the maximum number of civillians safe other than telling them to run and hide?

You ask. You can go door to door, but you ask to come in, you don't demand. You go on the news and you ask that people stay inside, but you don't compel them. You give them the tools to keep themselves safe and you let them choose the best way for them to do it.

What if another bomb is unleashed, and people unable to get to safety are blown up by it?
posted by corb at 8:14 AM on April 19, 2013


I really hope he's taken alive, both because it's one less death and because we all want to know wtf was going through his and his brother's heads.
posted by alms at 8:15 AM on April 19, 2013 [6 favorites]


Do we even know if these guys are practicing muslims?
posted by Think_Long at 8:15 AM on April 19, 2013


I DO get the no info thing but come on the guy had to rob a 7/11, has been on the run for over 8 hours. I doubt his cell phone is working and he is actively checking twitter or listening to the police scanner on tunein.
posted by Burgatron at 8:15 AM on April 19, 2013


Note I don't think anybody should freakout because they came here in 2002; it's just that I'm anticipating the reductive reasoning of "they came here post 9/11 to blow up more shit." And yeah, not so great to be like: U.S. WILL HULK SMASH but shit, we've lived through this and we know how irrational this stuff can get.

It just doesn't make sense though, even with reductive reasoning, because they were little kids in 2002.
posted by sweetkid at 8:15 AM on April 19, 2013 [1 favorite]


Serious question, guys. I'm in the Harvard Square area. Is it a good idea to walk my dog? I don't think it's a bad idea, and she's getting antsy. I don't blame her. I only let her do a quick #1 this morning. Wouldn't you be?
posted by Countess Elena at 8:15 AM on April 19, 2013


There are a lot of police infringements on civil rights that concern me, but locking down the city one time while they look for a bomber on the loose really isn't one of them.
posted by Pater Aletheias at 8:15 AM on April 19, 2013 [9 favorites]


They moved here in 2002 when we were at the height of Islamophobia? Seems strange.

Probably not as intense as things were back home, though.
posted by drezdn at 8:15 AM on April 19, 2013


Also: NY Mag on the suspect.
posted by Potomac Avenue at 8:15 AM on April 19, 2013


corb: "You ask. You can go door to door, but you ask to come in, you don't demand."

Aren't reports from Boston saying that's exactly what's happening?
posted by Bugbread at 8:15 AM on April 19, 2013 [12 favorites]


Can we stop assuming and telling each other about the irrational xenophobic reactions our fellow citizens are going to have because of supposition X, each statement of which mostly just seems to lay a little more groundwork for cynical defeatism about our future politics.
posted by crayz at 8:16 AM on April 19, 2013 [20 favorites]


I know there are tactical reasons for it, but I still don't like it. This is the first time I'm aware of police shutting down an entire major U.S. city due to a single perpetrator.

Hopefully there will be some lives saved if only due to people not having to drive on Boston highways today.
posted by RobotVoodooPower at 8:16 AM on April 19, 2013 [3 favorites]


You give them the tools to keep themselves safe and you let them choose the best way for them to do it.

This isn't just a matter of personal choice, though. If I go outside and end up distracting the LEOs from doing their jobs, I am increasing the risk for others.
posted by a snickering nuthatch at 8:16 AM on April 19, 2013 [3 favorites]


So anyway what beef do Chechens have against America? I thought that the USA was more or less on their side? Islamist terrrorists really have an issue with biting the hand that feeds.
posted by L.P. Hatecraft at 8:16 AM on April 19, 2013


They moved here in 2002 when we were at the height of Islamophobia? Seems strange.

I have a few Bangladeshi inlaws who moved to New York in 2002 while other Muslim family members were moving the hell out. Even post-9/11 it was much much more attractive to them in terms of opportunities, education, etc than staying where they were. They would laugh at you if you suggested it weren't,
posted by jamesonandwater at 8:16 AM on April 19, 2013 [4 favorites]


His NPR interlocutor pronounced it "Joe-kar".

Some men just want to see the world burn.
posted by SPrintF at 8:16 AM on April 19, 2013 [9 favorites]


I am having a hard time hearing from all the personal sources that these kids just seemed like normal guys... but do normal nice sweet people attempt to hold up a 7-11? That's an awfully desperate thing to do. Something just doesn't seem right, but I'll let time tell.
posted by hillabeans at 8:16 AM on April 19, 2013


Do we even know if these guys are practicing muslims?

We know that at least one of them was. The older brother.
posted by OmieWise at 8:16 AM on April 19, 2013


Countess Elena, I would let the dog use a Bounty towel in the house just this once.
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 8:16 AM on April 19, 2013 [6 favorites]


Do we even know if these guys are practicing muslims?

According to that NY Mag piece, he likes Islam on Facebook.
posted by Potomac Avenue at 8:17 AM on April 19, 2013 [4 favorites]


Think_Long - Reports have suggested yes. From people who knew them, also from (unconfirmed if they are the suspects though) fb and youtube profiles.
posted by Burgatron at 8:17 AM on April 19, 2013


Kerry Sanders on NBC confirms he sees a man in a "turquoise shirt" lying motionless on the ground.
posted by BobbyVan


That's Jeff from The Wiggles, he does that all the time.
posted by dr_dank at 8:17 AM on April 19, 2013 [31 favorites]


My friend is driving up from NYC tonight to visit family. I don't feel like I can say he's doing something unwise but...
posted by sweetkid at 8:17 AM on April 19, 2013


That's an awfully desperate thing to do.

Well yeah, but wouldn't you be pretty desperate if your photos were all over the world as the most wanted people?
posted by The 10th Regiment of Foot at 8:18 AM on April 19, 2013 [1 favorite]


What if another bomb is unleashed, and people unable to get to safety are blown up by it?

If another bomb is unleashed in Boston right now, it may kill a couple of people in their home. It won't kill a hundred people at a public transit hub. We can what-if the situation to the nth degree, but I personally am okay with a lockdown to catch a suspect in a bombing that "only" killed three people through sheer luck. Get back to me if this is still going on next week.
posted by Etrigan at 8:18 AM on April 19, 2013 [3 favorites]


This is the first time I'm aware of police shutting down an entire major U.S. city due to a single perpetrator.

The feds shut down the entire US airplane system and left people stranded for days. Locking down a city while hunting for a known bomber is not unreasonable.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 8:18 AM on April 19, 2013 [11 favorites]


According to that NY Mag piece, he likes Islam on Facebook.

I like Solaris on FB. Don't actually use it, though.
posted by Pogo_Fuzzybutt at 8:18 AM on April 19, 2013 [14 favorites]


Been watching this tensely from far away, and I second roomthreeseventeen. Countess Elena, we'd rather see you in the thread than on the news.
posted by kinnakeet at 8:18 AM on April 19, 2013 [1 favorite]


For the past few hours I've had a blog window open (I'm not going to link to it, the relevant information is here and the rest is ....) his has been crowd-source doxxing these people.

It has been uncanny to watch.
I think their "facebook" pages have been torn apart.

According to that NY Mag piece, he likes Islam on Facebook.

There are indications from the website above he liked Jihadi videos on YouTube, but I'd not be 100% sure. Being Chechen there'd be a possibility, and if they were a brother-team they'd not necessarily reach out to anyone else.
posted by Mezentian at 8:19 AM on April 19, 2013


So anyway what beef do Chechens have against America?

What beef did these two Chechens have?
posted by drezdn at 8:19 AM on April 19, 2013 [50 favorites]


If we can't trust the official media arm of the Chechen mujahideen, who can we trust?

In all honesty, I would trust the word of the Chechen mujahideen sooner than I'd trust the Butcher of Grozny to "assist with the investigation."
posted by Sys Rq at 8:19 AM on April 19, 2013 [3 favorites]


You ask. You can go door to door, but you ask to come in, you don't demand

Well, the police have every right to demand to come in in exigent circumstances and have had it for years; it also sounds like they are asking rather than demanding and everyone's letting them in because clearly that's what you do; the SWAT team isn't coming back to arrest you for the pot plants in the basement.
posted by Bulgaroktonos at 8:19 AM on April 19, 2013


Do we even know if these guys are practicing muslims?

Bloomberg is up on the work TV, and they had some guy call in who had trained with older brother guy at an MMA gym.

(Paraphrased)
Bloomberg anchor: did you get an idea that he was a religious man?
MMA guy: well, I know he didn't drink
Bloomberg: was it for religious reasons?
MMA guy: I don't know for sure, but probably
Bloomberg: what religion would you say he was?
MMA guy: I don't know
Bloomberg: if you had to guess?
MMA guy: probably Muslim? I only know him from MMA...he won the Golden Gloves competition a while back
Bloomberg: you should contact law enforcement, you have useful information
[end interview]

Bloomberg anchor: ...Muslim Chechnyan terrorist...
posted by phunniemee at 8:19 AM on April 19, 2013 [16 favorites]


Well yeah, but wouldn't you be pretty desperate if your photos were all over the world as the most wanted people?

I'd probably go to the cops / FBI / media to clear my name if I was innocent.
posted by hillabeans at 8:19 AM on April 19, 2013


@mlevenson
One friend described Dzhokhar Tsarnaev as a laid-back "stoner."
I know MetaFilter likes to joke about this subject, but, this is what the marijuana will do to you. If I had a quarter for the number of times a person on marijuana has taken a "toke" and suffered a "MAJOR FREAK OUT" then I'd do my laundry a whole lot more more than I do, I'll tellyou that
posted by Rory Marinich at 8:20 AM on April 19, 2013 [8 favorites]


Re: 4th Amendment issues on the door to door searches

There is an exigent circumstances exception to the warrant requirement.
posted by Dr. Zira at 8:20 AM on April 19, 2013 [1 favorite]


MMA guy: probably Muslim? I only know him from MMA...he won the Golden Gloves competition a while back
Bloomberg: you should contact law enforcement, you have useful information


I like the implication that it's the Golden Gloves information that makes the reporter tell him to contact police. THEY MUST KNOW TO SEND THEIR BEST BOXER.
posted by Bulgaroktonos at 8:20 AM on April 19, 2013 [35 favorites]


So anyway what beef do Chechens have against America?

What beef did these two Chechens have?


For real. Exactly what we thought would happen if the perpetrators weren't reg'lar white guys is happening.
posted by sweetkid at 8:21 AM on April 19, 2013 [18 favorites]


I'm supposed to get on a train tonight to go to Boston. Every minute this jerkoff stays loose my chances of it getting cancelled go up, given that Amtrak is stopping in Rhode Island right now.
posted by Potomac Avenue at 8:21 AM on April 19, 2013


If I had a quarter for the number of times a person on marijuana has taken a "toke" and suffered a "MAJOR FREAK OUT" then I'd do my laundry a whole lot more more than I do, I'll tellyou that

#420NO
posted by (Arsenio) Hall and (Warren) Oates at 8:21 AM on April 19, 2013


After Boston, they were going to target REO Speedwagon & Journey. The '70s buttrock wars have begun.

That's Jeff from The Wiggles, he does that all the time.


dr_dank, this is certain to be a long and fast-moving thread. You've made two jokes now. Maybe take the rest to chat.metafilter.com?
posted by mediareport at 8:21 AM on April 19, 2013 [8 favorites]


The NYTimes liveblog has a link to this photo essay about the older brother in which he describes himself as "very religious." "The subject also described himself as a “very religious,” if newly devout Muslim at the time: “Tamerlan says he doesn’t smoke or drink anymore. ‘God said no alcohol.’ A Muslim, he says, ‘There are no values anymore,’ and worries that ‘people can’t control themselves.’”"
posted by OmieWise at 8:21 AM on April 19, 2013 [1 favorite]


>Bloomberg: what religion would you say he was?
MMA guy: I don't know
Bloomberg: if you had to guess?
MMA guy: probably Muslim? I only know him from MMA...he won the Golden Gloves competition a while back
Bloomberg: you should contact law enforcement, you have useful information
[end interview]

Bloomberg anchor: ...Muslim Chechnyan terrorist...


This really happened? Jesus fuck.
posted by xbonesgt at 8:21 AM on April 19, 2013


I know MetaFilter likes to joke about this subject, but, this is what the marijuana will do to you.

WHAT
posted by kinnakeet at 8:22 AM on April 19, 2013 [17 favorites]


Oh hey, the Boy Scouts are going to allow gay scouts.
posted by drezdn at 8:22 AM on April 19, 2013 [14 favorites]


I know MetaFilter likes to joke about this subject, but, this is what the marijuana will do to you.

Is that you, Rob Delany?
posted by drezdn at 8:22 AM on April 19, 2013 [3 favorites]


They moved here in 2002 when we were at the height of Islamophobia? Seems strange.

To immigrants, America is still America. American-brand Islamophobia is jack shit compared to getting shelled by the Russians or having to live in some backwoods village for the rest of your life hiding from getting shelled by the Russians.
posted by griphus at 8:22 AM on April 19, 2013 [28 favorites]


I just.... none of this makes sense to me. It sound like the older brother was maybe isolated and uncomfortable, but he clearly had human contact at his MMA gym and he had relationships with women so he wasn't totally out of touch. And I don't think popular stoner kids when I think bombers, either, as in the case of the younger brother.

And they came to the US too young to really care about Chechnya's struggles, I'm betting, and anyway what would Chechens have to gain by this? It's just so... odd. I know we don't have all the info yet, but nothing we've heard so far has made me think, "Oh, that makes sense," even a horrible, bomber-logic kind of sense.
posted by WidgetAlley at 8:22 AM on April 19, 2013 [1 favorite]




"You ask. You can go door to door, but you ask to come in, you don't demand."

This is what's on the Boston Police Department's homepage:
Residents in Boston, Watertown, Newton, Belmont, and Cambridge: City-wide shelter in place is advised as this investigation unfolds. Please understand we have an armed and dangerous person(s) still at large and police actively pursuing every lead in this active emergency event. Please be patient and use common sense. Avoid congregating in large crowds until this person(s) are apprehended. We will continue to update the public with more information as it becomes available.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 8:24 AM on April 19, 2013 [1 favorite]


having to live in some backwoods village for the rest of your life hiding from getting shelled by the Russians.

In Kyrgyzstan? These guys are not from Chechnya, I thought we got that cleared up. They lived in Dagestan for less than a year and in Boston for most of their life.
posted by The 10th Regiment of Foot at 8:24 AM on April 19, 2013 [1 favorite]


I believe the "this is what the marijuana will do to you" comment was Rory's sarcastic comment on what some anti-drug folk may actually believe.

At least, I hope that's the case.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 8:24 AM on April 19, 2013 [1 favorite]


Is anyone else confused as to why they tried to knock over a 7-11 for cash? Anyone that's been in the states for any period of time knows that they do cash drops every couple of minutes.
posted by playertobenamedlater at 8:25 AM on April 19, 2013 [1 favorite]




Oh hey, the Boy Scouts are going to allow gay scouts.

Please don't be joking. We need something cool to happen, and Patton Oswalt hasn't totally scratched that itch.
posted by zombieflanders at 8:25 AM on April 19, 2013


NPR replaying Robin Young's interview with her nephew. She gives him the pseudonym Z.

...So his name's Zach, then?
posted by maryr at 8:26 AM on April 19, 2013 [1 favorite]


L.P. Hatecraft: So anyway what beef do Chechens have against America? I thought that the USA was more or less on their side? Islamist terrrorists really have an issue with biting the hand that feeds.

I think these guys are Internet Islamists -- learned what their religion is about over the internet, which, as we all know, can make it easy to be an extremist about anything (vi vs. EMACS, civil rights, whatever). "I don't have a single American friend, I don't understand them" sounds pretty alienated, so why have any compunctions about blowing these people up?

I don't think this has anything to do with Chechnya, other than that there's been a war there since the '90s, and this is what you get from that. I agree with Pogo_Fuzzybutt, I think these people are more Columbine than 9/11. They just happen to be Muslim immigrants, not metal heads from Colorado.
posted by wormwood23 at 8:26 AM on April 19, 2013 [5 favorites]


Anyone that's been in the states for any period of time knows that they do cash drops every couple of minutes.

I have lived in the US my entire life and I was not aware of this.
posted by Flamingo at 8:26 AM on April 19, 2013 [15 favorites]


Interview with their uncle in DC -
Interviewer: "what what behind it?"
Uncle - "Being losers!"

Stay safe fellow Bostonians.
posted by fermezporte at 8:26 AM on April 19, 2013 [19 favorites]


Is anyone else confused as to why they tried to knock over a 7-11 for cast? Anyone that's been in the states for any period of time knows that they do cash drops every couple of minutes.

....I've lived in the United States for my entire life and I didn't know that.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 8:27 AM on April 19, 2013 [14 favorites]


...So his name's Zach, then?

There are lots of Z boy names. Zachary, Zane, Zander, etc.
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 8:27 AM on April 19, 2013


Obama was one of the few Democrats that seemed unchanged in a position against the war in Afghanistan. Even Hillary Clinton was like "yeah, sure" (something I remembered in the 2007 primary season).

Plus as said previously, we are not going to war with Chechnya because Russia, and also because these kids have been here ten years, they're ours.
posted by sweetkid at 8:27 AM on April 19, 2013




Is anyone else confused as to why they tried to knock over a 7-11 for cast?

Reportedly, they had dreams of being the Chechnyan Coen Brothers, so it makes sense.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 8:27 AM on April 19, 2013 [2 favorites]


Obama is not Bush, and Biden is not Cheney. They will not stoke the fires of our worst impulses for their own political gains.

Other people will though. I don't think the immigration bill has any hope of passing now (at least in this particular Congress). Will also be interesting to see the impact of this on the next midterms.
posted by longdaysjourney at 8:28 AM on April 19, 2013



Interview with their uncle in DC -
Interviewer: "what what behind it?"
Uncle - "Being losers!"


If you are a loser in the land of opportunity, what are your options?
posted by ennui.bz at 8:28 AM on April 19, 2013 [3 favorites]


I fear this NPR connection is going to get play. NPR REPORTER IS FRIENDS WITH MUSLIMS CHECHNYAN TERRORIST!

Ugh.
posted by Big_B at 8:28 AM on April 19, 2013


Oh hey, the Boy Scouts are going to allow gay scouts.

Helluva Friday for a news dump.
posted by Jahaza at 8:28 AM on April 19, 2013 [4 favorites]



....I've lived in the United States for my entire life and I didn't know that.

It's been two decades since I worked at one, but a good way to get fired, even back then, was to have more than 50 bucks in the till.
posted by Pogo_Fuzzybutt at 8:28 AM on April 19, 2013


From the photo essay by Johannes Hirn:
Tamerlan says he doesn't usually take his shirt off so girls don't get bad ideas: "I'm very religious."
And:
Tamerlan says he doesn't drink or smoke anymore: "God said no alcohol." A muslim, he says: "There are no values anymore," and worries that "people can't control themselves."
Unless this is a different person, which it doesn't seem it is, I think it's OK to say he's Muslim. That doesn't mean this is Islamic terrorism, but when he says he doesn't have any American friends and doesn't understand Americans, it's unnerving.
posted by daveliepmann at 8:28 AM on April 19, 2013 [2 favorites]


I actually appreciate the (clear) jokes in the thread, but could we not link to profiles or information on people who haven't been officially connected to the suspects? I can't even imagine how hard the news was for the Brown University student's family that the internet decided he was some kind of sneak bomber, and I don't think linking to mugshots of (possible) family members is a good thing.
posted by jetlagaddict at 8:29 AM on April 19, 2013


There is a pretty good percentage of Americans that hate America enough to try something like this. Most mass murderers in 2012 shootings were not foreigners or Muslim.
posted by JJ86 at 8:29 AM on April 19, 2013 [3 favorites]


Is that the uncle on WHDH saying "Don't put this on the whole Chechen ethnicity!!"

Edit: Yes. He was very passionate, pleading with his nephew to turn himself in.
posted by Eyebeams at 8:29 AM on April 19, 2013


In Kyrgyzstan? These guys are not from Chechnya, I thought we got that cleared up. They lived in Dagestan for less than a year and in Boston for most of their life.

Did we? I thought they ("they" including their family, who would be initiating all the migratory stuff) were Chechens who came to America via Kyrgyzstan.
posted by griphus at 8:30 AM on April 19, 2013


I fear this NPR connection is going to get play. NPR REPORTER IS FRIENDS WITH MUSLIMS CHECHNYAN TERRORIST!

Well, I fear that lots of people in this thread are getting themselves irrationally worked up over imaginary strawmen.
posted by showbiz_liz at 8:30 AM on April 19, 2013 [23 favorites]




Anybody who thinks this won't have an impact on the upcoming immigration bill doesn't fully understand the current American right.
posted by (Arsenio) Hall and (Warren) Oates at 8:30 AM on April 19, 2013 [5 favorites]


the police are asking people not give out important info

Ah, the over-mods. Fair enough and legit if they're concerned.
posted by RolandOfEld


Terrorists might be getting their info from Metafilter? That'll be a sorrowful "Mefi's own".
posted by 445supermag at 8:30 AM on April 19, 2013 [2 favorites]


What's with the non-stop cop car ballet? There's a half dozen vehicles coming and going at any given time - I keep thinking they're breaking up the siege, but no, just police hopping in and out of cars and trucks that seem to be in constant motion.
posted by Slap*Happy at 8:31 AM on April 19, 2013


Did they immigrate legally?
posted by jamesonandwater at 8:31 AM on April 19, 2013


NPR replaying Robin Young's interview with her nephew. She gives him the pseudonym Z.

Which is funny because they already interviewed him directly earlier and gave his name, which I now can't bring to mind.

Also, high-five to anyone who remembers Robin Young from Evening Magazine, back in the day.
posted by rtha at 8:31 AM on April 19, 2013


After last night waking to this? Good grief. I just hope when all's said and done the damage done is little over what's already been reported so far.
posted by hoople at 8:32 AM on April 19, 2013


Did we? I thought they ("they" including their family, who would be initiating all the migratory stuff) were Chechens who came to America via Kyrgyzstan.

They are ethnic Chechens who have never lived in Chechnya. To my knowlege Russia never shelled Chechens in Kyrgyzstan nor Dagestan.
posted by The 10th Regiment of Foot at 8:32 AM on April 19, 2013


What's with the non-stop cop car ballet?

Coffee delivery.
posted by drezdn at 8:32 AM on April 19, 2013 [1 favorite]


I don't feel at all confident in assuming these two guys had/have the same personality type or motivations.
posted by FelliniBlank at 8:32 AM on April 19, 2013 [1 favorite]


The bombers' uncle was on just now saying that the kids 1.) had no military training that he knew of, 2.) were ethnic Chechens who had lived in Kyrgyzstan, 3.) did not represent Muslims or Chechens. He also said he loves America, would have turned the kids in to authorities himself if he'd known what they were going to do, and wants his nephew to turn himself in.
posted by BlueJae at 8:32 AM on April 19, 2013 [6 favorites]


Did we? I thought they ("they" including their family, who would be initiating all the migratory stuff) were Chechens who came to America via Kyrgyzstan.
posted by griphus


I'm reading that they were of Chechen descent/ethnicity. So it'd be like calling an American Latino as someone "from Mexico" or a good chunk of Boston as "from Ireland."
posted by vacapinta at 8:33 AM on April 19, 2013


zombieflanders: Not a joke according to Reuters - the boy scouts are set to end the ban on gay members.
posted by rmd1023 at 8:33 AM on April 19, 2013 [2 favorites]


Or maybe she's just being an attention whore. I don't know.

Just for context, I think it'd be safe to say that Robin Young is a beloved local broadcaster and I'd cut her an enormous amount of slack that she's just trying to do the right thing and contribute information the best she can. She hosts the mid-day news show on WBUR and has for a very long time. Hearing her on the air the day after the marathon, slowly breaking down as she kept reporting more horrors from Monday, was one of the most moving things I've ever heard. By the end of the show she could barely speak.
posted by range at 8:33 AM on April 19, 2013 [21 favorites]


And all this on the 20th anniversary of Waco to boot.
posted by RobotVoodooPower at 8:33 AM on April 19, 2013


I dunno about y'all but I'm sick of living in a shitty Jerry Bruckheimer movie

All we need now is for this guy to steal a Hummer and have Nic Cage chase him in a Ferrari.
posted by hellojed at 8:33 AM on April 19, 2013 [10 favorites]


(I should say I saw the interview with the uncle on NBC, but I imagine it was being broadcast all over the place.)
posted by BlueJae at 8:33 AM on April 19, 2013


The uncle's statements as a whole are pretty incredible to watch. He's going out of his way to emphasize that he's ashamed and horrified at his nephew's actions, that this has nothing to do with religion nor Chechnya.
posted by joseph conrad is fully awesome at 8:34 AM on April 19, 2013 [9 favorites]


Plus as said previously, we are not going to war with Chechnya because Russia, and also because these kids have been here ten years, they're ours.

Are they? Do we know what their citizenship status is? How they personally identify?

I understand you're trying to stop the rush of "oh noes terrorists" but the rush to "they were just average Americans" is equally as bad.
posted by corb at 8:34 AM on April 19, 2013 [1 favorite]


zombieflanders: Please don't be joking. We need something cool to happen, and Patton Oswalt hasn't totally scratched that itch.

Does this help?
posted by MissySedai at 8:34 AM on April 19, 2013


I agree with Pogo_Fuzzybutt, I think these people are more Columbine than 9/11.

Events over the last 24 hours remind me quite a bit of Benjamin Smith, who didn't seem to have much of a plan beyond "drive by ethnic neighborhoods and houses of worship and shoot things up."
posted by CBrachyrhynchos at 8:34 AM on April 19, 2013 [2 favorites]


Considering that the alternative is "embroil the country in a 10-year war that results in pointless American casualties and costs trillions of dollars", I'm not sure I mind this turn of events quite so much.

There's more than one alternative here, and I think the future will hold more complex eventualities than either one raised by EmpressCallipygos or koeselitz above. Given the track record of policymakers, the executive and the judiciary in recent years, I suspect those eventualities will be far less conducive to peace and justice than they otherwise could be.
posted by audi alteram partem at 8:34 AM on April 19, 2013


I'm reading that they were of Chechen descent/ethnicity.

Ah, I stand corrected. In post-Soviet countries, moving to a different country with looser immigration laws and then emigrating to America a a refugee was one of the major ways to get into America.

Also, yeah, the shelling was in Azerbaijan, not Chechnya. I got mixed up on that one too. Mea culpa.
posted by griphus at 8:34 AM on April 19, 2013


What's with the non-stop cop car ballet?

Coffee delivery.


And subsequent bathroom trips.
posted by maryr at 8:35 AM on April 19, 2013 [1 favorite]


I posted this on the other thread but at the very end so it might have gotten lost: Interview with the boys' uncle. Kind of heartbreaking.
posted by peacheater at 8:35 AM on April 19, 2013 [2 favorites]


dr_dank, this is certain to be a long and fast-moving thread. You've made two jokes now. Maybe take the rest to chat.metafilter.com?

Better jokes than a bunch of dishtowel twisting speculation on What This Means and Imaginary Strawmen.
posted by Alvy Ampersand at 8:35 AM on April 19, 2013 [21 favorites]


How they personally identify?

The older brother has been trying to get on the US olympic boxing team.
posted by The 10th Regiment of Foot at 8:35 AM on April 19, 2013 [1 favorite]


I don't know why they'd need coffee delivered; there's a Dunkin' in the Arsenal Mall, and a Starbucks across the street at the Target.
posted by Elementary Penguin at 8:36 AM on April 19, 2013 [2 favorites]


What's with the non-stop cop car ballet?

Is it possible they're trying to quietly move someone from the area without triggering a massive media follow frenzy? (Doubtful, but I guess it's a slim chance.)
posted by _Mona_ at 8:36 AM on April 19, 2013


I dunno about y'all but I'm sick of living in a shitty Jerry Bruckheimer movie.

Can't be. Not enough lens flare.

What's up with the guy on the ground reported earlier?
posted by tilde at 8:36 AM on April 19, 2013


Boston manhunt: what is this round orb the SWAT team are using?

(containment vessel for explosives, apparently)
posted by Rumple at 8:36 AM on April 19, 2013


I don't know why they'd need coffee delivered; there's a Dunkin' in the Arsenal Mall, and a Starbucks across the street at the Target.

Probably not staffed right now.
posted by stopgap at 8:37 AM on April 19, 2013 [1 favorite]


According to the Guardian Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov has posted his opinions on Instagram:

Any attempt to make a link between Chechnya and the Tsarnaevs, if they are guilty, is in vain. They grew up in the US, their views and beliefs were formed there. The roots of evil must be searched for in America. The whole world must battle with terrorism.
posted by Conductor71 at 8:37 AM on April 19, 2013 [11 favorites]


Maybe someone answered this but I can't search it on this thread: What happened with the post from Metafilter yesterday about the 17 yr old turning himself in claiming his photo had been spread as a suspect? It looks like the post was removed. Did that turn out to not be true and the photo was actually one of these two guys?
posted by Liquidwolf at 8:37 AM on April 19, 2013


Elementary Penguin: "I don't know why they'd need coffee delivered; there's a Dunkin' in the Arsenal Mall"

The term of art is "Dunks."
posted by Chrysostom at 8:38 AM on April 19, 2013 [6 favorites]


Did they immigrate legally?

It's my understanding that they are both LPRs.
posted by MissySedai at 8:38 AM on April 19, 2013


Liquidwolf: no, mods just thought it didn't need its own thread.
posted by capricorn at 8:39 AM on April 19, 2013


Unless this is a different person, which it doesn't seem it is, I think it's OK to say he's Muslim. That doesn't mean this is Islamic terrorism, but when he says he doesn't have any American friends and doesn't understand Americans, it's unnerving.

And yet, he still takes his shirt off in photos, has a girlfriend, and has physical contact with her. Saying "I'm very religious" or that he's Muslim, honestly doesn't mean much to me. People say a lot of exaggerated stuff when they know it'll be public. Muslim" and "very religious" are pretty broad and vague terms that don't follow a formula. They are identifications - like any identification, religious or others, that can be very fluid and contextual. I know "very religious" Muslims that have per-marital sex with boyfriends/girlfriends, drink, smoke pot, wear hijab yet have boyfriends and also cheat on those boyfriends. What Muslims (or anyone) do off the record, versus for the record, can be pretty varying. Sure he identified as Muslim, but so what? At this point, it doesn't even seem relevant since it's so vague.
posted by raztaj at 8:39 AM on April 19, 2013 [4 favorites]


Mod note: Please consider taking Boy Scout chat elsewhere? And be mindful with your flagging.
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 8:40 AM on April 19, 2013 [2 favorites]


Dzhokhar Tsarnaev’s profile on vKontakte, the Russian version of Facebook: What’s real

We don't know

what’s fake

We don't know

and what we don’t know

See above.
posted by running order squabble fest at 8:40 AM on April 19, 2013 [2 favorites]


The girlfriend photos are from 2010.
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 8:40 AM on April 19, 2013


Instagram.

We're getting important political statements from Instagram.

2013, what is this.
posted by Rory Marinich at 8:40 AM on April 19, 2013 [31 favorites]


Minor point: Both the Bruins and the Red Sox are supposed to be playing this evening at home. No word yet on game cancellations.
posted by Chrysostom at 8:40 AM on April 19, 2013


CNN Breaking News: "We see a dog, it is barking. It could be a K9 unit, we don't know. It is a dog."
posted by T.D. Strange at 8:41 AM on April 19, 2013 [107 favorites]


The thing that gets me is all the people who, in response to this Boston Police Department tweet warning people not to broadcast tactical positions of homes being searched, are retweeting it with prefixes like "Aimed at media." No, it's aimed at everyone. There are people with smartphones (and Instagram) everywhere. The line between "residents" and "the media" becomes thinner every day—I think I saw in the last thread that there actually was a reporter reporting from his home during all of this, because the events that were unfolding were occurring on his doorstep. So sometimes there is no line.
posted by limeonaire at 8:41 AM on April 19, 2013 [2 favorites]


You know, it seems the most damaging thing the perp could do at this point is to tie a brick to his feet, jump into the Charles River and never be seen again.
posted by RobotVoodooPower at 8:41 AM on April 19, 2013 [8 favorites]


According to the Guardian Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov has posted his opinions on Instagram:

According to Wikipedia, Ramzan also claimed in 2005 that, "Chechnya is the 'most peaceful place in Russia' and in a few years it would also be 'the wealthiest and the most peaceful' place in the world."
posted by Jahaza at 8:41 AM on April 19, 2013 [1 favorite]


The term of art is "Dunks

I've always heard Dunkie's, but maybe I'm confusing it with Cumby's?
posted by maryr at 8:41 AM on April 19, 2013 [2 favorites]


"We see a dog, it is barking. It could be a K9 unit, we don't know. It is a dog."

"We're now being told it's a cat."
posted by TheWhiteSkull at 8:42 AM on April 19, 2013 [175 favorites]


Rachel Maddow MSNBC ‏@maddow 27s
On a northbound train into NYC. Conductor: "For those of you wondering about beyond New Haven? There is no beyond New Haven."
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 8:42 AM on April 19, 2013 [28 favorites]


"We see a dog, it is barking. It could be a K9 unit, we don't know. It is a dog."

You decided to walk him then?
posted by The 10th Regiment of Foot at 8:42 AM on April 19, 2013 [15 favorites]


I find the name Tamerlaine a very interesting coincidence. It's a Europeanization of Timur, who was a Mongol warlord in the 1400s, and whose story was told in the play Tamburlaine the Great by Marlowe. (I read it in college, and it was waay more thrilling than most plays of the time required by my Boston College English degree.)

A savvy military leader, a Muslim, and the founder of a dynasty. I wonder if this guy, disaffected and cut off (except from his brother), identified too much?

Long Wikipedia page here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timur
posted by wenestvedt at 8:42 AM on April 19, 2013 [1 favorite]


My wife is from Southboro, her family is from Worcester, they definitely say Dunks. Could be regional variations.
posted by Chrysostom at 8:43 AM on April 19, 2013


Any media organizations reach out to Gerard Depardieu yet?
posted by BobbyVan at 8:43 AM on April 19, 2013


Obama is not Bush, and Biden is not Cheney. They will not stoke the fires of our worst impulses for their own political gains.

That is only because the alleged perpetrators are not the Tea Party sympathizers or NRA members that Chris Matthews, David Sirota of Salon many here on the blue had hoped.
posted by otto42 at 8:43 AM on April 19, 2013 [2 favorites]


What happened with the post from Metafilter yesterday about the 17 yr old turning himself in claiming his photo had been spread as a suspect? It looks like the post was removed. Did that turn out to not be true and the photo was actually one of these two guys?

No, completely unrelated. The New York Post’s disgrace: The paper smears a kid and a young man on its front page as possible terrorists. Honestly, it was debunked even before it was in the newspaper and spread around Facebook.
posted by smackfu at 8:43 AM on April 19, 2013 [2 favorites]


Conductor: "For those of you wondering about beyond New Haven? There is no beyond New Haven."

How Lovecraftian.
posted by Countess Elena at 8:43 AM on April 19, 2013 [25 favorites]


The reason everyone is surprised about these kids embracing terrorism is because they learned much of what they know about Islam on the Internet on sites such as YouTube... and learned a considerable portion of that from terrorists. Chances are that if the uncle saw anything, he just saw relatively dedicated kids who had become perhaps a bit more obviously religious, but who didn't make enough of an effort to learn how to integrate a bit better with the outside world.

It's not about Islam, and most certainly not about Chechens. It's about the terrorist preachers who preyed upon their somewhat understandable desire for faith, meaning, and identity in order to teach them jihad.
posted by markkraft at 8:43 AM on April 19, 2013


TheWhiteSkull: ""We see a dog, it is barking. It could be a K9 unit, we don't know. It is a dog."

"We're now being told it's a cat."
"

"Skip, I'm reading on social media that the hash-tag #hugeferret is trending"
posted by wcfields at 8:43 AM on April 19, 2013 [22 favorites]


> "We see a dog, it is barking. It could be a K9 unit, we don't know. It is a dog."

Is that an exact quote? Because if so we're getting into "when Marge Simpson put the cat out" territory.
posted by The Card Cheat at 8:44 AM on April 19, 2013 [5 favorites]




The reason everyone is surprised about these kids embracing terrorism is because they learned much of what they know about Islam on the Internet on sites such as YouTube

citation?
posted by Golden Eternity at 8:45 AM on April 19, 2013 [7 favorites]


He speculates that the bombers' motivation is that they're "losers."

I wonder how much credit America's culture of individualism is owed for these episodes of mass nihilist violence. In some places if you turn into a violent lunatic, society asks "what did we do wrong?", in America we ask "what was wrong with him? oh. loser"

There's never anything we need to change about ourselves or understand or empathize about with others. We just need more police and guns and prisons and mental help for all these god damn losers in our fuck yeah #1 country on earth.
posted by crayz at 8:45 AM on April 19, 2013 [24 favorites]


ABC says the suspects' dad knew about the bombing, urges Dzhokhar to surrender...?
posted by homelystar at 8:45 AM on April 19, 2013


A savvy military leader, a Muslim, and the founder of a dynasty. I wonder if this guy, disaffected and cut off (except from his brother), identified too much?

It's a fairly common name; I don't think this is any more likely than a dude named Jesús thinking he's the messiah.
posted by griphus at 8:46 AM on April 19, 2013 [11 favorites]


"We see a dog, it is barking. It could be a K9 unit, we don't know. It is a dog."

Yes, but is it a Muslim dog?!
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 8:46 AM on April 19, 2013 [6 favorites]


I've been taking one for the team and watching Fox. Every other word is "foreign" -- baseless speculation about "foreign training" and so forth. All talking to their own "experts." Contrast with CNN, which is showing their uncle scornfully saying "It's nothing to do with Chechnya -- they've never even been to Chechnya."
posted by tyllwin at 8:46 AM on April 19, 2013 [1 favorite]


How long does the lockdown last if they don't find him tonight? Tomorrow? Next week? How long until the next lockdown when another criminal is on the loose? How many outstanding warrants are there in the Boston metro area?

Just call it "curfew". Countries have been doing it for centuries.
posted by KokuRyu at 8:46 AM on April 19, 2013 [2 favorites]


The reason everyone is surprised about these kids embracing terrorism is because they learned much of what they know about Islam on the Internet on sites such as YouTube... and learned a considerable portion of that from terrorists.

It's not about Islam, and most certainly not about Chechens. It's about the terrorist preachers who preyed upon their somewhat understandable desire for faith, meaning, and identity in order to teach them jihad.


I don't really think we can claim to know anything of the sort about these kids.

That is only because the alleged perpetrators are not the Tea Party sympathizers or NRA members that Chris Matthews, David Sirota of Salon many here on the blue had hoped.

The only reason anyone here "hoped" it was a white dude was because we didn't want to see any more incidents of brown people getting shat on because some other unrelated brown person did something. Like this poor guy.

It had nothing to with a liberal agenda, unless you see "don't want to see any more racist warmongering and hate crimes" as a liberal agenda.
posted by emjaybee at 8:47 AM on April 19, 2013 [37 favorites]


I always heard DD's, not Dunk's or Dunkie's.
posted by Rustic Etruscan at 8:47 AM on April 19, 2013 [1 favorite]




markkraft: “It's not about Islam, and most certainly not about Chechens. It's about the terrorist preachers who preyed upon their somewhat understandable desire for faith, meaning, and identity in order to teach them jihad.”

Is this based on your personal interview with one of the suspects? If not, this is just as likely about how they were pissed off that they'd finally gotten "Gangnam Style" out of their heads when Psy had to go and release a new video.

We really, really don't know. And speculation about motive, about intent, even about guilt is a mistake at this point.
posted by koeselitz at 8:47 AM on April 19, 2013 [14 favorites]


"and identity in order to teach them jihad."

Please stop making things up.
posted by MisantropicPainforest at 8:48 AM on April 19, 2013 [16 favorites]


So can we again throw around 1-31-07 Never Forget meme given all the miss information, militarized police manhunts, etc.?
posted by jeffburdges at 8:48 AM on April 19, 2013


Rustic Etruscan: I always heard DD's, not Dunk's or Dunkie's.

DD's or Dunks in my experience.
posted by Rock Steady at 8:48 AM on April 19, 2013


Holy shit, people. All these bytes being expended over "why?" and "how". The answer was given by the suspect's uncle: Because they're losers.
posted by dry white toast at 8:49 AM on April 19, 2013 [17 favorites]


jeffburdges - No.
posted by maryr at 8:49 AM on April 19, 2013 [1 favorite]


Suspects' father (via ABC News, as homelystar linked to): "If they kill my second child, I will know that it is an inside job, a hit job. The police are to blame," the father told ABC News. "Someone, some organization is out to get them."

What in the actual hell? He indeed claims to have known about the bombing and said they spoke of it before it happened this week. Crazy, crazy. Apparently it runs in the family.
posted by youandiandaflame at 8:49 AM on April 19, 2013 [1 favorite]


It's about the terrorist preachers who preyed upon their somewhat understandable desire for faith, meaning, and identity in order to teach them jihad.

Don't do this here, please.
posted by jessamyn at 8:50 AM on April 19, 2013 [17 favorites]


"Is this based on your personal interview with one of the suspects?"

Perhaps you should check out Tamerlan's YouTube, with all the videos of "end of the world" themed radical Islam, and the favorites folder for terrorism.
posted by markkraft at 8:50 AM on April 19, 2013


Not to worry, I'm sure watching everyone lose their shit like this isn't giving America's enemies any ideas or anything.
posted by dry white toast at 8:51 AM on April 19, 2013 [4 favorites]


A savvy military leader, a Muslim, and the founder of a dynasty. I wonder if this guy, disaffected and cut off (except from his brother), identified too much?

Perhaps of interest: Genghis (Чингиз) is also a pretty common name in Russia's southern regions. A land of Mongol warlords!
posted by Nomyte at 8:51 AM on April 19, 2013 [3 favorites]


Totasaid they spoke of it before it happened this week

It doesn't say that. I thought it suggested they spoke about it between the bombing and now.
posted by knapah at 8:51 AM on April 19, 2013 [1 favorite]


I laughed harder at this post than I have at anything in like a year. :-)
posted by Eyebeams at 8:51 AM on April 19, 2013 [1 favorite]


Dad is sooo getting hauled in for questioning. If he knew, he's an accessory, yes?
posted by emjaybee at 8:51 AM on April 19, 2013


That is only because the alleged perpetrators are not the Tea Party sympathizers or NRA members that Chris Matthews, David Sirota of Salon many here on the blue had hoped.

otto42: I resent the implication I hoped it would right-wing terrorists. Actually, that possibility scared me more than any of the others, because I have friends and acquaintances who might easily go this way and it makes me quite nervous. I only pointed out the fact that so much of recent terrorism in the US has been right-wing in origin to balance out a pretty steady stream of links to more right-leaning sources that had been publishing (later retracted) information implicating Islamic terrorists.

Believe me, I don't want to have to worry about right-wing terrorists anymore than I do Islamist ones, and I'm not rooting for any result other than the truth to come out and people to stay safe. But thanks for making me a poster-boy for a position I've never held.
posted by saulgoodman at 8:52 AM on April 19, 2013 [9 favorites]


He indeed claims to have known about the bombing and said they spoke of it before it happened this week. Crazy, crazy. Apparently it runs in the family.

No, he said he spoke to them of the bombing. As in, possibly: "Dear son, I heard about the bombing. Are you okay?" "Yes Dad, I am fine, I hope they find who did this."
posted by (Arsenio) Hall and (Warren) Oates at 8:52 AM on April 19, 2013 [6 favorites]


I hope nobody ever tries to ~understand~ me just by looking at my youtube account and facebook page or whatever.
posted by lullaby at 8:52 AM on April 19, 2013 [41 favorites]


Brandon Blatcher: " Yes, but is it a Muslim dog?!"

It's a muzzlem.
posted by Room 641-A at 8:52 AM on April 19, 2013 [1 favorite]


would we be having this discussion about wars in other places if they were Irish protestants from Belfast who moved here 10+ years ago?

Yes, I think so. And if they were US-born, moved to another country 10 years ago and did a similar thing there, we might be asking whether US entertainment violence or disdain for further gun-control regulation or latent racial tensions or something else about US culture had affected them. Wouldn't we?
posted by homelystar at 8:52 AM on April 19, 2013 [3 favorites]


CBS: FBI used State Department records to match names with photos.
posted by ericb at 8:52 AM on April 19, 2013


How long does the lockdown last if they don't find him tonight? Tomorrow? Next week? How long until the next lockdown when another criminal is on the loose? How many outstanding warrants are there in the Boston metro area?

I think the first question is interesting, but I'm not that worried about how it will be answered. There's a perfectly reasonable balancing act that changes as time goes on and the cost of keeping people locked in their homes goes up; I'm guessing Boston will be mostly back to normal arrest or not, in a few days.

The question about lockdowns for outstanding warrants is just alarmist nonsense. The police are not going to start locking down whole neighborhoods because there are outstanding warrants; if nothing else, it's a waste of their time and resources. This is absolutely the kind of rare event that is completely useless for determining future policy.
posted by Bulgaroktonos at 8:52 AM on April 19, 2013 [1 favorite]


DD's or Dunks in my experience.
The last time I was up in Massachusetts, a British friend started referring to the store as Duncan and Donuts, or The Establishment of Messrs. Duncan and Donut.
posted by evidenceofabsence at 8:53 AM on April 19, 2013 [30 favorites]


He indeed claims to have known about the bombing and said they spoke of it before it happened this week.

I thought he meant that he'd heard there were bombings in Boston and talked to them to ask if they were alright, which is why they reassured them they were fine.
posted by pineappleheart at 8:53 AM on April 19, 2013 [1 favorite]


Dad is sooo getting hauled in for questioning.

Dad is in Russia.
posted by The 10th Regiment of Foot at 8:53 AM on April 19, 2013 [1 favorite]


Dad is sooo getting hauled in for questioning. If he knew, he's an accessory, yes?

Yes, but it looks like he's still in Russia, in Makhachkala. Extraditing him as an accessory could be difficult, although I'm sure they'll ask if he'd like to cooperate on the investigation.

Oh, looks like I misread and that he was asking if his sons were okay. Either way he might still be part of the investigation after the fact.
posted by WidgetAlley at 8:53 AM on April 19, 2013


Youtube channel /= window to someone's psyche.
posted by emjaybee at 8:53 AM on April 19, 2013 [2 favorites]


Dad is sooo getting hauled in for questioning. If he knew, he's an accessory, yes?

According to the ABC link, Dad is in Russia, which will complicate that.
posted by immlass at 8:54 AM on April 19, 2013


A number of Boston-area folks on my twitter feed are reporting their power just went out.
posted by anastasiav at 8:54 AM on April 19, 2013


[sarcasm] wait, I thought this was a false flag operation. [/sarcasm]
posted by Freen at 8:54 AM on April 19, 2013 [4 favorites]




Suspects' father (via ABC News, as homelystar linked to): "If they kill my second child, I will know that it is an inside job, a hit job. The police are to blame," the father told ABC News. "Someone, some organization is out to get them."

What in the actual hell? He indeed claims to have known about the bombing and said they spoke of it before it happened this week. Crazy, crazy. Apparently it runs in the family.


Reminds me of the Egyptian father of one of the 9/11 plane hijackers... "My son would never have done this."

Doesn't seem hard to understand.
posted by KokuRyu at 8:55 AM on April 19, 2013 [3 favorites]


No, he said he spoke to them of the bombing. As in, possibly: "Dear son, I heard about the bombing. Are you okay?" "Yes Dad, I am fine, I hope they find who did this."

You are right. I apologize, I misread the story; the dad maintains they are innocent
posted by homelystar at 8:55 AM on April 19, 2013 [2 favorites]


I can't tell you if the dog was muslim, but I do know he was dark-furred.
posted by marienbad at 8:55 AM on April 19, 2013 [2 favorites]


evidenceofabsence: "DD's or Dunks in my experience.
The last time I was up in Massachusetts, a British friend started referring to the store as Duncan and Donuts, or The Establishment of Messrs. Duncan and Donut.
"

I always heard it as "Da' fuk'n Dunk, ya go'of"
posted by wcfields at 8:55 AM on April 19, 2013 [2 favorites]


Dad is in Russia, which will complicate that.

This is about Chechen-related terrorism. Putin will probably torture the father personally.
posted by Slothrup at 8:56 AM on April 19, 2013 [9 favorites]


There are things worth listening to happening on the scanners if you are the type to want to listen.

This one is working better for me than the one in the post:

http://www.ustream.tv/channel/ma-rt-9-window-cam
posted by snuffleupagus at 8:56 AM on April 19, 2013


Brandon Blatcher: " Yes, but is it a Muslim dog?!"

Room 641-A: "It's a muzzlim."


It's a muttslem. Duh.
posted by maryr at 8:56 AM on April 19, 2013 [2 favorites]


What in the actual hell? He indeed claims to have known about the bombing and said they spoke of it before it happened this week. Crazy, crazy. Apparently it runs in the family.

If this is true, at what point can we move this from "suspect's father" and into the realm of "third suspect"?
posted by corb at 8:56 AM on April 19, 2013


"I hope nobody ever tries to ~understand~ me just by looking at my youtube account and facebook page or whatever."

Well, if you favorited the same things on YouTube that Tamerlan did, it would explain why you hated the Harry Potter movies so much.
posted by markkraft at 8:56 AM on April 19, 2013 [1 favorite]


I read that wrong as well, Arsenio..., homelystar, etc.

My apologies on being too jazzed up and forgetting reading comprehension is a thing I have.
posted by youandiandaflame at 8:57 AM on April 19, 2013


corb: that misunderstanding was clarified later. the father didn't "know about the bombing in advance" he reportedly just talked to them after the fact to see if they had been hurt.
posted by saulgoodman at 8:58 AM on April 19, 2013


YouTube account that belongs to a person named Tamerlan Tsarnaev had bookmarked videos on terrorism

And this is what Google's incessant "Would you like to use your real name?" popups get us. Are we sure this account isn't a fake? It seems awfully obvious for the dude to have used his real name and actually had a folder labelled "terrorism".
posted by WidgetAlley at 8:58 AM on April 19, 2013 [1 favorite]


Putin will probably torture the father personally.

Will he do it shirtless?
posted by The 10th Regiment of Foot at 8:58 AM on April 19, 2013 [1 favorite]


This is about Chechen-related terrorism.

No it isn't. At least not necessarily.
posted by sweetkid at 8:58 AM on April 19, 2013 [3 favorites]


Corb: I apparently completely misread what was being said by the father. As others pointed out here, it seems he simply asked about his son's AFTER the bombing and they replied they were fine. They didn't actually talk about the fact that his sons were involved. My bad on that one there...
posted by youandiandaflame at 8:58 AM on April 19, 2013


Forget What You Think You Know About Al-Qaeda
The United States has eliminated generations of al Qaeda's leadership, forced it out of one safe haven in Afghanistan, hammered it in another haven inside Pakistan, and driven the organization to decentralize itself. These successes have made it virtually impossible to accurately describe anymore what we mean by "an al Qaeda attack." These changes mean my former colleagues in the counterterrorism world must consider a limitless universe of potential al Qaeda attacks and tactics, with a scattered and shadowy leadership structure to monitor.
What You Need To Know About Chechnya
There are indications—unconfirmed—that the two brothers sought by law enforcement may have ties to Chechnya. With the troubled Russian region in the news, here's a primer on a violent region that has long struggled against Russian hegemony.
Chechnya's War Just Arrived In The United States
These guys likely had no connection to the Caucasus Emirate in person; connection would likely have been online. This looks more and more like "resonant effects," rather than something planned and executed by a cadre-level organization.

Chechens I know are completely crushed. Let's hope the FBI gets to the remaining suspect before the Chechen refugee community in Boston does. Boston welcomed and protected Chechen asylum seekers like no other city. Those people will tear these kids to pieces for the harm they've done.
posted by the man of twists and turns at 8:58 AM on April 19, 2013 [12 favorites]


Youtube channel /= window to someone's psyche.

Oh gods, I hope not. Given general YouTube comment quality and content.
posted by maryr at 8:58 AM on April 19, 2013 [2 favorites]


Then we do not believe in mandatory lockdowns and mandatory house-to-house searches and grabbing everyone being suspicious with a cellphone or a shovel or a bag.

That is Iraq-level shit.
It also seems like a bit of an over-reaction if it really is just one guy. It's going to be hugely expensive if it goes on too long. It might be frightening but if it's only one person it's not really going to be a huge risk to public safety to allow things to return to normal. He's not going to be able to show his face anywhere without being recognized immediately.

And in the mean time, people can't get to work. Stores don't have customers, manufacturers can't manufacture their products. Boston's GDP is about $320-360 billion a year. And that's not including all the surrounding suburbs. A complete lockdown would cost a billion dollars a day. I don't exactly know what exactly "lockdown" actually means here, if it's just advisory or what. But a lot of transportation systems are shut down.
Otherwise I'm totally for posting scanner updates of the critical and game ending type in the thread


The problem with "critical and game ending" scanner information is that you don't know how to correctly identify it until the game is over.
Are we concerned that this kid has internet access, is reading metafilter threads to keep tabs on the police, but somehow too dumb to just tune into the online police scanners himself?

Because if it's stuff that's coming over the air, then the guy has as much access to it as he does this thread.

I think what the police don't want is people taking out their camera phones and posting tweets showing the locations of all the police cars in the area.
So yes, putting a city on lockdown and searching house to house is warranted, and I'll be shocked if very many people are upset about it. What they would be upset about is letting this kid escape so he can murder again.
It depends on how long. If he's not caught in a couple days people will start to get sick of it. The individual risk to any individual person is going to be very low, even if it might be kind of scary, the downsides of this "plan" are immense if it goes on for more then a day or two. (although it sounds like they know exactly where he is, but who really knows at this point)

There are lot of things we could do to make the world safer, but we don't, because they are annoying. Like putting limiters in every car that prevent them from going over 65MPH. Or requiring breathalyzers in all cars. Or banning fatty foods. Those things kill way more people then this guy ever will.
Effectively, you have alleged killers on the run with guns and bombs, and people trying to stop them from doing that. It's a warzone - civillians do not belong in a warzone.
It's not a "warzone" if there's only one guy.
They moved here in 2002 when we were at the height of Islamophobia? Seems strange.
You noticed they were white, right?
So anyway what beef do Chechens have against America? I thought that the USA was more or less on their side? Islamist terrorists really have an issue with biting the hand that feeds.
No one is on their side. The war is over and they lost, as far as I know. The US certainly didn't do anything to help them. The US and Russia aren't exactly enemies anymore either. How was America in any way "on their side" during the conflict?

Also, why is it any less likely for a Muslim Chechen to become a terrorist then a Muslim from the UAE or Morocco or something?
Anybody who thinks this won't have an impact on the upcoming immigration bill doesn't fully understand the current American right.
Ann Coulter is about as "current" as Monica's dress stains. And, I'm not sure if you noticed but I don't think Ann Coulter's position changed here. There are going to be hard-core xenophobes who oppose immigration reform. This attack doesn't change anything. It's not going to cause immigration reform supporters to change their mind, especially since these two were legal immigrants.
posted by delmoi at 8:58 AM on April 19, 2013 [7 favorites]


markkraft: “Perhaps you should check out Tamerlan's YouTube, with all the videos of ‘end of the world’ themed radical Islam, and the favorites folder for terrorism.”

Okay, I don't want to engage this too much, but – things we're assuming so far:

1. That these two guys were clearly the ones who did the Boston Marathon bombing. "It seems likely..." Yeah, lots of things that seem likely turn out to be wrong.
2. That these two particular guys are the ones on the run. See previous note about likely stories.
3. That that is affirmatively and definitively a Youtube account belonging to one of them. See earlier notes about the literally hundreds of fake Twitter accounts created in their names over the past few hours.

In particular, #3 here seems very, very dubious to me.

I think we should heed the warnings of those who have urged caution and forbearance in speculating about motive. We know nothing. We will not know anything any time this morning. That is okay. All I want is for whatever guy was blowing things up last night to be in jail, and that seems like the best we can hope for at this moment.
posted by koeselitz at 9:00 AM on April 19, 2013 [5 favorites]


This was asked upthread, maybe more than once, but I never saw an answer. Last night police in Watertown had a man in custody, face down on the pavement with his arms spread. Was that man at all related to the bombers?
posted by chemoboy at 9:00 AM on April 19, 2013


I do wonder where the father's head is at if he's talking about "all hell breaking loose" and some organization being out to get his son because he doesn't believe he did this.
posted by youandiandaflame at 9:00 AM on April 19, 2013 [1 favorite]


CBS: FBI used State Department records to match names with photos.

I hate to second-guess the FBI/police (wait, no I don't...), but am I the only one who thinks that, if this is true, then releasing the suspects's photos was a big mistake? The timing makes it seem like they almost certainly were staying in the Boston area for the past couple days, and only started running and shooting at or throwing bombs at cops when their pictures were all over the press.
posted by muddgirl at 9:00 AM on April 19, 2013


Tony Soprano [over the phone]: It's a bad connection so I'm gonna talk fast! The guy you're looking for is an ex-commando! He killed sixteen Chechen rebels single-handed!

Paulie 'Walnuts' Gualtieri: Get the fuck outta here.

Tony Soprano: Yeah. Nice, huh? He was with the Interior Ministry. Guy's like a Russian green beret. He can not come back and tell this story. You understand?

Paulie 'Walnuts' Gualtieri: I hear you.

[hangs up]

Paulie 'Walnuts' Gualtieri: You're not gonna believe this. He killed sixteen Czechoslovakians. Guy was an interior decorator.

Christopher Moltisanti: His house looked like shit.
Today we are all Paulie Walnuts -- 4/19 Nevar Forget
posted by gompa at 9:00 AM on April 19, 2013 [103 favorites]


I took a break from the news and now I feel like I woke up in an alternate dimension.
posted by The Whelk at 9:01 AM on April 19, 2013 [20 favorites]


These guys are literally Caucasians (ethnically from the Caucus mountain region) aren't they? (Not that it matters really.)
posted by saulgoodman at 9:01 AM on April 19, 2013 [6 favorites]


chemoboy: seems like no.
posted by maryr at 9:01 AM on April 19, 2013


Was that man at all related to the bombers?

He was supposedly released, but there are reports that he may have been re-arrested, so... shruggity?
posted by drezdn at 9:01 AM on April 19, 2013


Those in the know don't speak. Those who speak don't know.
posted by dry white toast at 9:02 AM on April 19, 2013 [3 favorites]


***IMPORTANT MESSAGE***

If the comment you are composing includes the word 'probably,' please do not post it.
posted by shakespeherian at 9:02 AM on April 19, 2013 [27 favorites]


gompa, you're a gentleman and a scholar.
posted by griphus at 9:02 AM on April 19, 2013


I took a break from the news and now I feel like I woke up in an alternate dimension.

Jeez, tell me about it. (So much for my Avenging Angels of Aaron Swartz theory I was working on when I went to bed last night.)
posted by scody at 9:03 AM on April 19, 2013 [2 favorites]


And if they were US-born, moved to another country 10 years ago and did a similar thing there, we might be asking whether US entertainment violence or disdain for further gun-control regulation or latent racial tensions or something else about US culture had affected them. Wouldn't we?

Of course not. Here's how it works:

1. If they're from somewhere else and they do something awful here, then their foreignness is to blame.
2. If they're from here and they do something awful somewhere else, then they were radicalized by foreigners.
3. If they're (police/military) from here and they do something awful here, then they are rogue criminals.
4. If they're (civilians) from here and they so something awful here, then they are crazy.

The U.S. is never to blame. The policies, history, culture, and society of the (arguably) most powerful nation on earth have no bearing on how others perceive us and we are shocked, shocked by violent behaviors of when they happen to us (not when they happen to others though).
posted by headnsouth at 9:03 AM on April 19, 2013 [47 favorites]


Chechens I know are completely crushed. Let's hope the FBI gets to the remaining suspect before the Chechen refugee community in Boston does. Boston welcomed and protected Chechen asylum seekers like no other city. Those people will tear these kids to pieces for the harm they've done.

Oh, that makes it even more tragic in so many ways, especially if Boston switches like NYC switched after 9/11.
posted by corb at 9:04 AM on April 19, 2013 [5 favorites]


Regarding upthread discussion of whether searching police would "take notes" and return later if they happened across a grow room or DVD pirating shed -- if you have a grow room or DVD pirating shed and SWAT comes through without busting you, and you *don't* get rid of said room/shed, then you deserve to get busted later.
posted by Celsius1414 at 9:05 AM on April 19, 2013 [4 favorites]


Maybe we should look at their Steam accounts to see what kind of games they play? Probably terrorist training games with codenames like COD?
posted by JJ86 at 9:05 AM on April 19, 2013 [4 favorites]


Those in the know don't speak. Those who speak don't know.

...sure.
posted by Steely-eyed Missile Man at 9:05 AM on April 19, 2013


***IMPORTANT MESSAGE***

If the comment you are composing includes the word 'probably,' please do not post it.


The endless loop contained in this comment kinda hurts my brain.
posted by RolandOfEld at 9:06 AM on April 19, 2013 [7 favorites]


"We see a dog, it is barking. It could be a K9 unit, we don't know. It is a dog."

Yes, but is it a Muslim dog?!


Well, I never saw it eat pork or drink alcohol, so yeah, probably.
posted by pernoctalian at 9:06 AM on April 19, 2013 [7 favorites]


These guys are literally Caucasians (ethnically from the Caucus mountain region) aren't they?

Here's something that will really blow your mind: Iran is farsi for Aryan.
posted by The 10th Regiment of Foot at 9:06 AM on April 19, 2013 [5 favorites]


The Czech Republic is trending on Twitter. Sigh.

This is like when my wife gets Slovenia confused with Slovakia, but way less cute.
posted by dry white toast at 9:06 AM on April 19, 2013 [16 favorites]


"They're losers."

Apparently, their uncle is Donald Trump.
posted by drezdn at 9:06 AM on April 19, 2013 [1 favorite]


"4/19 Nevar Forget"
posted by gompa

Thank god its 420 tomorrow.
posted by marienbad at 9:07 AM on April 19, 2013 [8 favorites]


Apparently, their uncle is Donald Trump.

Genghis Trump.
posted by Nomyte at 9:07 AM on April 19, 2013 [1 favorite]


The Czech Republic is trending on Twitter. Sigh.

WTF? Unless twitter has decided as a group to enjoy some tasty Kolaches.
posted by drezdn at 9:07 AM on April 19, 2013 [5 favorites]


It think it's OK to say that public safety elements are preparing for a press conference (since that's an announced event).
posted by snuffleupagus at 9:07 AM on April 19, 2013


Social media is the new Zapruder.
posted by davebush at 9:08 AM on April 19, 2013 [2 favorites]


I am having so much trouble not reading "Rindge" as a typo.
posted by evidenceofabsence at 9:08 AM on April 19, 2013 [2 favorites]


Oh and if you wondering about right-wing reaction:

Arkansas Lawmaker Mocks Boston ‘Liberals,’ Says They Wish They Had Assault Rifles
posted by Celsius1414 at 9:08 AM on April 19, 2013


Dog has fled the area. Police reporting 'bomb-like' effects of smell in previous location. One officer bent double and horking.
posted by fleacircus at 9:09 AM on April 19, 2013 [1 favorite]


You know what: this is nothing like 9/11. It doesn't really have anything to do with Chechnya or Islam. This is more like Columbine or Newtown. Its two incredibly fucked up and angry and lonely kids (or maybe one very fucked up kid and his impressionable younger brother) who were able to accumulate a ridiculous arsenal and acted out their personal demons in a completely incomprehenisble way. Yeah, he posted stuff about Islam on his youtube channel or whatever as he grasped for any straws of support he could get hold of. But this is not about that.
posted by RandlePatrickMcMurphy at 9:09 AM on April 19, 2013 [18 favorites]


It had nothing to with a liberal agenda, unless you see "don't want to see any more racist warmongering and hate crimes" as a liberal agenda.
posted by emjaybee at 8:47 AM on April 19 [13 favorites +] [!]


According to the Post article, the alleged assailants were Hispanic. Is "racist warmongering" even possible from the perspective of a liberal if both the victim and the assailant can qualify as being "brown people"?
posted by otto42 at 9:09 AM on April 19, 2013


From Nate Bell, R-AR, aka @NateBell4AR
"I wonder how many Boston liberals spent the night cowering in their homes wishing they had an AR-15 with a hi-capacity magazine? #2A"
posted by maryr at 9:09 AM on April 19, 2013


"Are we sure this account isn't a fake?"

Apparently, the account was created in August 2012, and YouTube thought it wise to delete the account that hosted the videos for the Terrorists folder since then.
posted by markkraft at 9:09 AM on April 19, 2013


Also, why is it any less likely for a Muslim Chechen to become a terrorist then a Muslim from the UAE or Morocco or something?

I've always gotten the impression that Chechnya -- like Bosnia -- was pretty thoroughly secularized. It would be like a Swede coming to the US to shoot a doctor he thought was performing abortions.
posted by Slothrup at 9:10 AM on April 19, 2013


From twitter:

@BoringPostcards: So basically, this week is what it would feel like to live in Gotham City.
posted by The Whelk at 9:10 AM on April 19, 2013 [48 favorites]


If the comment you are composing includes the word 'probably,' please do not post it.

A paradox!
posted by Jahaza at 9:10 AM on April 19, 2013 [1 favorite]


Here's something that will really blow your mind: Iran is farsi for Aryan.

I know--I've got a coworker who's ancestrally Aryan (though culturally Indian).

Ach! It's the Nazis again! (Sorry. That's a terrible, terrible joke.)

posted by saulgoodman at 9:11 AM on April 19, 2013


So I sleep in a bit just this one day and see what happens?

Somewhere, Christopher Nolan is surrounded by multiple televisions, chain smoking, furiously filling notebooks.
posted by HannoverFist at 9:11 AM on April 19, 2013 [5 favorites]


Also, the uncle who lives in Maryland Ruslan Tsarni is very heartfelt about this.

"Tsarni called his nephews "losers" and said his family had not seen them since December 2005. They lived near Boston and had been in the U.S. for about a decade.. Tsarni said vehemently that Chechnya had nothing to do with the attack. He said his nephews had struggled to settle themselves in the U.S. and ended up "thereby just hating everyone."

Read more: http://www.wptv.com/dpp/news/national/ruslan-tsarni-losers-interview-video-uncle-says-dzhozkar-tamerlan-tsarnaev-were-losers-on-nbc#ixzz2QvUTbwdX
posted by RandlePatrickMcMurphy at 9:11 AM on April 19, 2013 [1 favorite]


I really wish this thread wasn't so impossible to read at work. Is there anything I should know that I'm not getting from news sites?
posted by IvoShandor at 9:11 AM on April 19, 2013 [1 favorite]


After all the hype about how social media helped catch them their capture really resulted from them robbing a 7-11.
posted by PHINC at 9:12 AM on April 19, 2013 [3 favorites]


"I wonder how many Boston liberals spent the night cowering in their homes wishing they had an AR-15 with a hi-capacity magazine? #2A"

At no point in the last 12 hours have I thought that I was better qualified to handle this situation with violent force than the police.
posted by Horace Rumpole at 9:12 AM on April 19, 2013 [71 favorites]


Okay.
posted by goodnewsfortheinsane at 9:14 AM on April 19, 2013 [17 favorites]


I'm genuinely curious. Where did these guys get their guns? Cambridge has, even by Massachusetts standards, draconian gun laws.
posted by pentagoet at 9:14 AM on April 19, 2013


for greg
posted by shakespeherian at 9:14 AM on April 19, 2013 [5 favorites]


"I wonder how many Boston liberals spent the night cowering in their homes wishing they had an AR-15 with a hi-capacity magazine? #2A"

I wonder how many Bostonians would have been accidentally shot, or shot by the police, if they were all carrying around AR-15's.
posted by Golden Eternity at 9:14 AM on April 19, 2013 [38 favorites]


Watching the reporters interview the uncle was a bit like watching sharks in a feeding frenzy, other than the fact that sharks are a bit more compassionate.
posted by HuronBob at 9:14 AM on April 19, 2013 [3 favorites]


Is there anything I should know that I'm not getting from news sites?

Yes: You are safe. You have nothing to fear.
posted by Sys Rq at 9:14 AM on April 19, 2013 [22 favorites]


WTF? Unless twitter has decided as a group to enjoy some tasty Kolaches.

Twitter and I agree on something. I would LOVE some kolaches right now, I tell you what.
posted by louche mustachio at 9:14 AM on April 19, 2013 [3 favorites]


ABC News ‏@ABC 1m
According to a friend and other evidence examined by @ABC News, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev’s twitter account appears to be @J_tsar
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 9:15 AM on April 19, 2013


this thread is making me woozy i think i need some Dramamine
posted by robbyrobs at 9:15 AM on April 19, 2013


A savvy military leader, a Muslim, and the founder of a dynasty. I wonder if this guy, disaffected and cut off (except from his brother), identified too much?

Then again, Attila is still a popular boy's name in Hungary.
posted by acb at 9:15 AM on April 19, 2013 [4 favorites]


Replies to tweet from @NateBell4AR are mostly along the lines of "@ashmont: @NateBell4AR And, I do mean this with ALL DUE RESPECT - go fuck yourself.
posted by maryr at 9:15 AM on April 19, 2013 [3 favorites]


Yes: You are safe. You have nothing to fear.

What is all this smart-assed crap? I was asking a serious question.
posted by IvoShandor at 9:16 AM on April 19, 2013 [2 favorites]


I've always gotten the impression that Chechnya -- like Bosnia -- was pretty thoroughly secularized. It would be like a Swede coming to the US to shoot a doctor he thought was performing abortions.

I've heard that some Chechens became more religious and even radicalized over the last 20 years. I don't know if that's true and, even if so, what relation it may have two these particular individuals.
posted by Area Man at 9:16 AM on April 19, 2013


Too late for a cool dog pic?
posted by Chrysostom at 9:16 AM on April 19, 2013 [1 favorite]


I wonder how many Boston liberals spent the night cowering in their homes wishing they had an AR-15 with a hi-capacity magazine?

To do what, precisely? "Cower in their homes," while holding a rifle?

Because wandering around the streets with an assault weapon probably wouldn't have been too smart.

Anyone who saw somone who looked like the suspects had been told to call the police, and explicitly not to engage them. Multiple times, by multiple authorities.

This guy is an irresponsible asshole, but I guess we already knew that. Still, he should be taken over the hurdles for it because the timing is unforgivable.
posted by snuffleupagus at 9:16 AM on April 19, 2013 [5 favorites]




An empty Boston looks like a movie set.
posted by DoubleLune at 9:16 AM on April 19, 2013 [3 favorites]


Those are very cool dogs everybody but let's not fill up the thread.
posted by cortex at 9:17 AM on April 19, 2013 [11 favorites]


Where did these guys get their guns? Cambridge has, even by Massachusetts standards, draconian gun laws.

They could have gotten their hands on the guns and grenades any number of ways. New Hampshire's less than an hour away and still has gun shows. Doesn't seem like these two were too concerned with the letter of the law.
posted by oinopaponton at 9:17 AM on April 19, 2013


So what about that reproter from NBC who said they had recieved military training overseas...
posted by Burgatron at 9:17 AM on April 19, 2013


What is all this smart-assed crap? I was asking a serious question.
Woah. I think it was a serious answer. We are not supposed to post specific scanner based infos.
posted by snuffleupagus at 9:17 AM on April 19, 2013 [3 favorites]


According to a friend and other evidence examined by @ABC News, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev’s twitter account appears to be @J_tsar

That seems kind of unlikely. There are lots of really innocuous tweets from April 15.
posted by mudpuppie at 9:17 AM on April 19, 2013


Too late for a cool dog pic?

I'm having the damn weirdest Bader Meinhoff thing with Spuds Mackenzie. This is the third time in a week that he's come up in my life. IT IS 2013 GO BACK TO 1989 WHERE YOU BELONG DOG.
posted by Bulgaroktonos at 9:18 AM on April 19, 2013 [3 favorites]


But the dogs where the only thing I understood.
posted by The Whelk at 9:18 AM on April 19, 2013 [1 favorite]


Huh, if that is his Twitter account -- um, I dunno. Just strange. On the day of the bombing, posts: "Ain't no love in the heart of the city, stay safe people"
posted by (Arsenio) Hall and (Warren) Oates at 9:18 AM on April 19, 2013


Then again, Attila is still a popular boy's name in Hungary.

That's true; when I was a teenager, I had a tremendous crush on a cute boy from Transylvania named Attila who was as peace- and Belle & Sebastian-loving as a teenage crush in 1999 could have been.
posted by pineappleheart at 9:19 AM on April 19, 2013 [3 favorites]


Then again, Attila is still a popular boy's name in Hungary.

All right, all right, all right. I get it. The name Tamerlane is not destiny.

Damn English degree, still useless...
posted by wenestvedt at 9:20 AM on April 19, 2013 [9 favorites]


Mod note: Comment removed. Tense situation, people may be talking past each other, but please keep your cool.
posted by cortex (staff) at 9:20 AM on April 19, 2013


Third page of this NYT article has vivid detail of last night's firefight.

Also this bit seems a little odd:

Buzzfeed on the older brother: He maintained a YouTube page that focused on Sunni Islam and included a playlist named "terrorist."

NYT: The older brother left a record on YouTube of his favorite clips, which included,,,testimonial from a young ethnic Russian man titled “How I accepted Islam and became a Shiite...”
posted by mediareport at 9:21 AM on April 19, 2013 [1 favorite]


Maybe they just hate marathons.
posted by BeeDo at 9:21 AM on April 19, 2013 [3 favorites]


Nate Bell can fuck the right hell off.
posted by edgeways at 9:21 AM on April 19, 2013 [7 favorites]


From twitter:

@BoringPostcards: So basically, this week is what it would feel like to live in Gotham City.


I've been re-watching Batman Beyond on Netflix the past couple of weeks and have wished several times that we had a good Detective on the case.
posted by zengargoyle at 9:21 AM on April 19, 2013


How could a guy with a cat this adorable be a mad bomber?
posted by desjardins at 9:21 AM on April 19, 2013 [1 favorite]


To do what, precisely? "Cower in their homes," while holding a rifle?

And that's a problem because ... ?

If you're going to own an assault rifle, I would think cowering in one's home with it is about the only thing you could do with it that's helpful.
posted by Cool Papa Bell at 9:21 AM on April 19, 2013 [4 favorites]


Wandering Boston with an assault rifle will undoubtedly get you shot by police right now.
posted by rtha at 9:22 AM on April 19, 2013 [4 favorites]


"Bingo. I think all the speculation about their ethnicity is problematic - would we be having this discussion about wars in other places if they were Irish protestants from Belfast who moved here 10+ years ago?"

That's a bad example. Yours and similar comments are mistaken in the general, mistaken in the particular with regard to Chechen ethnicity and nationalism, and mistaken in the particular in that one of the brothers has explicitly expressed his nationalism. Furthermore, even if neither brother was born in Chechnya but rather in Kyrgyzstan (about which I'm skeptical, at the least in the case of the older), then I guarantee that their parents were born in Chechnya. Kyrgyzstan does not have a significant Chechen population.

And it's some serious American parochialism, or perhaps imperialism, to believe that moving to the US as a child and living here for ten years "makes you an American". The vast majority of the people around the world don't think like that, they retain their ethnic identities when they emigrate elsewhere, and those ethnic identities are intimately connected in the modern world to national identities, for many generations, in some cases notoriously perpetually. Not all immigrants "assimilate" and not all immigrants want to assimilate and it's a particular kind of American arrogance to presume that it's inevitable.

Furthermore, Chechens are a special case (but far from unique) because they've just gone through a generation of rebellion and crushing defeat that corresponds to a diaspora in conjunction with a redirection of nationalist striving into the available shared Islamic cause where for eleven years there's been increasing and intense anti-americanism. Chechens have fought in Afghanistan and Iraq and now have a long association with Al Qaeda. The US was tepidly friendly to Chechen independence during the 90s, when we solidly had the dissolute Russia's nominal friendship and had nothing to fear from them in any event. But after 9/11 and concomitant with Putin's savage assault on Chechnya, the US found itself in the position of a) not being comfortable supporting even tepidly a revoluationary Islamic republic; and b) needed Russia to not complicate matters in our prosecution of two wars. And Putin well knew this and he basically told us that part of his price was that we would support him in his similar campaign against Islamic terrorists. And we have. In words. And in withdrawing that tepid support for Chechnya; which really had only amounted to sort of saying, hey, Russia, maybe you should treat those guys a little better? Which we shut up about.

All this means that, yeah, the US fell into the "enemy" column for a large portion of those Chechens most invested in their nationalist struggle that was now, finally, in earnest also becoming a religious struggle. Because the nationalist struggle didn't go very well. Which bears on the matter of young Chechen boys growing up in a strange American culture while struggling to understand their own identity.

A people that has such a history — a history of, for example, Stalin relocating all of them out of Chechnya in one of his little ethnogeographical experiments — with lots of oppression and then a little autonomy, followed by corruption and disaster and then utter, terrifying, apocalyptic humiliating defeat ... well, a people like that tends to nurse their dreams and their resentments. And they build these things into their identity and they mold their children in these forms.

Now, these particular Chechens may be the exception to these norms. They may not be strongly nationalistic and resentful and ambitious; and they may not share their generation's renewed religious fervor; and they may have, you know, assimilated. Fallen in love with the American Dream because there's fifty-two different kinds of toothpaste available along the supermarket aisle, because surely nothing could be more wonderful than that! But given that they're writing about Chechnyan independence and quoting Al Qaeda-inflected religious views and, oh yeah, acting like terrorists, then I think the burden of proof is on those who claim that this surely is nothing any different than any other two angry American post-adolescent mass murderers.

And the tragedy is that if the impetus for these contortions is to somehow head off at the pass the thundering herd of American xenophobic racism, well, I'm sorry to report that there's no diverting that herd when blood has been spilled and in any case, you're not going to accomplish it on MetaFilter.

Otherwise, welcome to the world, it's a very big place, and ethnic nationalism is, you know, a thing.
posted by Ivan Fyodorovich at 9:22 AM on April 19, 2013 [79 favorites]


Apparently there is some sort of military personel present now, in addition to police? Any details on that?
posted by kiltedtaco at 9:22 AM on April 19, 2013


That's true; when I was a teenager, I had a tremendous crush on a cute boy from Transylvania named Attila

Just imagine if you'd hooked up: Hun-ey, I'm home.
posted by MuffinMan at 9:22 AM on April 19, 2013 [5 favorites]


If you're going to own an assault rifle, I would think cowering in one's home with it is about the only thing you could do with it that's helpful.

I use mine as a channel changer.
posted by shakespeherian at 9:23 AM on April 19, 2013 [5 favorites]


would we be having this discussion about wars in other places if they were Irish protestants from Belfast who moved here 10+ years ago?

Would we be having a discussion on the impact of an NI childhood on Prods who then bombed one of the most Irish/Catholic cities in the US? Well, I don't know about you, but for me of course.
posted by jaduncan at 9:23 AM on April 19, 2013 [6 favorites]


How could a guy with a cat this adorable be a mad bomber?

Ask Richelieu.
posted by Sphinx at 9:23 AM on April 19, 2013 [1 favorite]


Just imagine if you'd hooked up: Hun-ey, I'm home.

Oh, I think I did enough imagining back then to cover me for the next few decades.
posted by pineappleheart at 9:24 AM on April 19, 2013 [2 favorites]


Where did they get their guns? Lots of places, but very likely up north.

Some years ago we stopped on a drive from Boston up the the Maine outlets. We wandered around a big, two story outdoors store -- the Kittery Trading Post, maybe. Up on the second floor I saw a clerk selling a handgun to a squinting old duffer whose vision was so bad that the clerk had to offer the guy his own glasses to fill out the form. But the gun was right there on the counter, presumably to take home that same day. *gulp*
posted by wenestvedt at 9:24 AM on April 19, 2013 [4 favorites]



So what about that reproter from NBC who said they had recieved military training overseas...

About as creditable as Blitzer saying "... was most definitely wearing a suicide vest, or something..." Yeah Wolf, that about covers all bases. God damn but are they spinning trying to find something new to say.

A billion words written and spoken in the last <12 hours just to cover something that could fit in a concise paragraph.
posted by edgeways at 9:24 AM on April 19, 2013 [3 favorites]


I live about 3/4 of a mile away from where all the cops are hanging out. I woke up at 5:30 to my son (on vacation) going to sleep but mentioning "They got the MIT shooter at the 7-11 up the street!" Then I got a text from work telling me not to show up, and then a text from my town to say "everyone stay inside, this may be the marathon suspect, stay clear of the area, etc, and the Town is closed today." So I watched TV from then until 9:30AM, felt all tweaked and agitated... then I realized, "I have the day off of work, what am I doing getting all agitated and watching TV in the morning?" and so I went back to bed, to the white noise of nonstop helicopters.

Since nothing still seems to be happening, I may just take another nap.

Oh yeah, and seeing the streets devoid of any sort of traffic: eerie.
posted by not_on_display at 9:24 AM on April 19, 2013 [5 favorites]


At risk of Godwinning the thread, you know who loved German Shepherds?
posted by Celsius1414 at 9:25 AM on April 19, 2013 [2 favorites]


NBC now reporting that the younger brother was a naturalized American citizen (as in, yes, he was an immigrant, but had obtained citizenship).

NBC also stupidly going on about how the older brother is now known to have traveled to Russia last year (as if this were some sort of suspicious thing when THEY ARE FROM RUSSIA AND THEIR FATHER LIVES THERE).
posted by BlueJae at 9:25 AM on April 19, 2013 [2 favorites]


A savvy military leader, a Muslim, and the founder of a dynasty. I wonder if this guy, disaffected and cut off (except from his brother), identified too much?

My name is Frank and I could barely give a rat's ass about Merovingian or Carolingian kings. I mean, sure, fuck the Romans, but beyond that...
posted by Cool Papa Bell at 9:25 AM on April 19, 2013 [13 favorites]


From Nate Bell, R-AR, aka @NateBell4AR
"I wonder how many Boston liberals spent the night cowering in their homes wishing they had an AR-15 with a hi-capacity magazine? #2A"


Yeah, a city in a state of panic, twitching at every possible false alarm, and all armed to the teeth with rifles that allow them to fire off dozens of bullets, each capable of piercing multiple walls before losing lethal capacity, in seconds. If that doesn't scream "security" to you you obviously hate freedom.
posted by yoink at 9:25 AM on April 19, 2013 [27 favorites]


And that's a problem because ... ?

Because the Gentleman from Arkansas was mocking liberal Bostonians for "cowering" unarmed in their homes.
posted by snuffleupagus at 9:25 AM on April 19, 2013 [2 favorites]


Alex Wagner, MSNBC: "UMass Amherst is being evacuated."

Sigh. There's a big difference between Amherst and Dartmouth (Which is being evacuated.)
posted by wensink at 9:25 AM on April 19, 2013


Okay, so just so we're clear, nothing is actually happening right now, right?

I mean we're talking about the guy's family and animals, so this is basically what would happen if Metafilter were stuck in an elevator?
posted by dry white toast at 9:26 AM on April 19, 2013 [24 favorites]


Regarding the military training thing -- they were saying it a lot this morning with no attribution, but this just popped up:

NBC Nightly News ‏@nbcnightlynews 55s
Bombing suspect Tamerlan Tsarnaev traveled to Sheremetyevo, Russia via JFK airport last year; out of the country for 6 months -@Jonathan4ny


However, as noted above, going to Russia =/= "military training"
posted by (Arsenio) Hall and (Warren) Oates at 9:26 AM on April 19, 2013


MetaFilter: What would happen if MetaFilter were stuck in an elevator?
posted by Cool Papa Bell at 9:27 AM on April 19, 2013 [8 favorites]


The thought of arming the populace with AR-15s in this scenario brings up imagery of post-scarecrow gotham.
posted by MysticMCJ at 9:28 AM on April 19, 2013 [3 favorites]


so this is basically what would happen if Metafilter were stuck in an elevator?

No what would happen is metafilter would use their kindle to find the first available thread to call the outside world for help because they've been stuck for hours....

(seriously, anyone have the link to that thread handy? It's a nice one.)
posted by RolandOfEld at 9:28 AM on April 19, 2013 [13 favorites]


Better jokes than a bunch of dishtowel twisting speculation on What This Means and Imaginary Strawmen.

I hear you and respect this opinion. However, I am more afraid today than I am yesterday, when the investigation was 'leaning towards domestic.' I am afraid not because I am scared of x y and z group but because, like David Bowie, I am afraid of Americans. I am an American white chick, but I am afraid for:
1) My friend and weed dealer (Islamic)
2) My Sikh students, who have kinda adopted me and call me sister, for a list of reasons. I'll be going to one of their graduations this August as almost a family member.
3) A Palestinian relative (through marriage) who was hounded by the CIA/FBI post 9/11
4) My many American Islamic students who wear hijabs and therefore might be targets.

So, I appreciate the dispensing of tension through jokes, but I am not in a joking mood right now. I am in a very fearful mood right now.
posted by angrycat at 9:28 AM on April 19, 2013 [18 favorites]


DD's or Dunks in my experience.

I call it "The Funkin'" or "Funkin's", but that's probably just me.
posted by the painkiller at 9:28 AM on April 19, 2013


would we be having this discussion about wars in other places if they were Irish protestants from Belfast who moved here 10+ years ago?"

Jesus God yes. Absolutely, without a doubt, the media would be banging on about the history of The Troubles. Doubly, triply so because the bombing was in oh so Catholic Boston. People seek any available narrative to contextualise the shocking.
posted by DarlingBri at 9:28 AM on April 19, 2013 [8 favorites]


His twitter account mentions liking meth.
posted by empath at 9:28 AM on April 19, 2013


NBC also stupidly going on about how the older brother is now known to have traveled to Russia last year (as if this were some sort of suspicious thing when THEY ARE FROM RUSSIA AND THEIR FATHER LIVES THERE).

It's certainly relevant, and is a lead worth pursuing. Who did he meet with? Where else did he go while he was out of the US?
posted by BobbyVan at 9:28 AM on April 19, 2013 [1 favorite]


Bombing suspect Tamerlan Tsarnaev traveled to Sheremetyevo, Russia via JFK airport last year; out of the country for 6 months -@Jonathan4ny

That's not a place, that's the name of one of the three airports in Moscow.
posted by griphus at 9:28 AM on April 19, 2013 [17 favorites]


If you're bored you can watch A Live spacewalk around the ISS.
posted by zengargoyle at 9:29 AM on April 19, 2013 [2 favorites]


Anyone else hear the interview with that highschool buddy of Dzhokhar's on NPR this AM? Just imagine your feelings if one of your close highschool friends--a guy you thought of as salt of the earth, happy, friendly, utterly well-intentioned--suddenly showed up on TV as a terrorist at the center of a huge manhunt. It bends your brain a little just thinking about it.
posted by yoink at 9:29 AM on April 19, 2013 [10 favorites]


MetaFilter: What would happen if MetaFilter were stuck in an elevator?

I imagine the oxygen would disappear very quickly.
posted by terrapin at 9:29 AM on April 19, 2013 [10 favorites]


Nate Bell can....

Not disagreeing but maybe bringing people's shitty comments into this thread from Twitter so we can collectively hate them isn't the best use of hyperlinking capabilities?
posted by jessamyn at 9:30 AM on April 19, 2013 [11 favorites]


I mean we're talking about the guy's family and animals, so this is basically what would happen if Metafilter were stuck in an elevator?

This is starting to look like a bottle episode.
posted by chemoboy at 9:30 AM on April 19, 2013 [7 favorites]


so this is basically what would happen if Metafilter were stuck in an elevator

Isn't Metafilter generally what would happen if Metafilter were stuck in an elevator?
posted by yoink at 9:30 AM on April 19, 2013 [9 favorites]


If one of us turns out to be the devil I will be very upset.
posted by The Whelk at 9:31 AM on April 19, 2013 [10 favorites]


At risk of Godwinning the thread, you know who loved German Shepherds?

Max von Stephanitz?
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 9:31 AM on April 19, 2013 [4 favorites]


Isn't Metafilter generally what would happen if Metafilter were stuck in an elevator?

YM Metatalk. HTH.
posted by dersins at 9:32 AM on April 19, 2013


This is starting to look like a bottle episode.

Yeah, this RV is just sittin' in the desert.
posted by Beardman at 9:32 AM on April 19, 2013


...but not that surprised, really.
posted by Skorgu at 9:32 AM on April 19, 2013


His twitter account mentions liking meth.

Do we know if any of the twitter accounts are definitely genuine at this point?
posted by yoink at 9:32 AM on April 19, 2013 [1 favorite]


Roland - the kindle elevator thread, the meTa.
posted by rtha at 9:32 AM on April 19, 2013 [8 favorites]


so this is basically what would happen if Metafilter were stuck in an elevator
I have no idea how these people got their servers wedged into the elevator, or why.
posted by evidenceofabsence at 9:32 AM on April 19, 2013 [4 favorites]


"I respect this country. I love this country. This country that gives [a] chance to everybody else to be treated as a human being." -- Ruslan Tsarni, uncle of the two suspects, visibly shaken and giving his condolences to the families of the victims, when asked what he thinks of this country. And when asked what he would say to his younger nephew: "Turn yourself in."

That poor man. What a nightmare it must be to discover that your own nephews could do such a thing.
posted by orange swan at 9:32 AM on April 19, 2013 [25 favorites]


Press conference starting on WBUR.
posted by Horace Rumpole at 9:33 AM on April 19, 2013


MetaFilter: What would happen if MetaFilter were stuck in an elevator?

If it were AskMeFi, the answer would be therapy.
posted by 445supermag at 9:33 AM on April 19, 2013 [5 favorites]




It doesn't really have anything to do with Chechnya or Islam.

I don't think we can say that either. I think it's too early to speculate on political motivation here. It's not unheard of for people to convert to violent and radical politics. Maybe they were just motivated to blow shit up. Maybe they were recent converts due to family connections or friendships. We don't really know yet.

Personally, I think the relationship between first and second-generation immigrants who adopt terrorist causes says a lot more about the nature of class, prejudice, and economics in the West than immigration.

Then again, Attila is still a popular boy's name in Hungary.

And I've heard variants on Gengis is popular in Turkish region, where he's seen more like a post-Roman George Washington.

Not to mention all the boys named George, Richard, and Douglas in the United States.
posted by CBrachyrhynchos at 9:34 AM on April 19, 2013 [3 favorites]


Governor says the stay indoors thing is a "request" for those of you who are concerned.
posted by bobobox at 9:35 AM on April 19, 2013 [2 favorites]


Look on the bright side everybody, ain't nobody got time for remembering Thatcher.
posted by Yowser at 9:35 AM on April 19, 2013 [7 favorites]


If one of us turns out to be the devil I will be very upset.

I talk on my cell phone in movie theaters.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 9:36 AM on April 19, 2013 [2 favorites]


Alex Ross ‏@alexrossmusic
Theremin expert Jon Bernhardt has been at MIT's WMBR since 8am, under lockdown but DJing defiantly http://wmbr.mit.edu
posted by Omon Ra at 9:36 AM on April 19, 2013 [10 favorites]


Yeah.. between gun control and immigration reform it certainly did not take the Republicans long to start trying to make hay of the situation.
posted by edgeways at 9:36 AM on April 19, 2013 [1 favorite]


It's weird to see people describing this as a whole city lockdown. They've established a pretty small perimeter, unless that's changed since last night.

And this is pretty much the definition of exigent circumstances. They're not going to be able to bust any potheads with grow ops because they searched for a terrorist.
posted by klangklangston at 9:36 AM on April 19, 2013 [1 favorite]


And here we go: Senator Says Boston Bombing Should Be Factor in Immigration Debate

From the Senator in link: “While we don’t yet know the immigration status of people who have terrorized the communities in Massachusetts, when we find out it will help shed light on the weaknesses of our system.”

Yeah, dude, all these 9- and 16-year-old refugees we're letting in are a serious national security problem.

Won't someone please think of how we can better detain the children?
posted by griphus at 9:37 AM on April 19, 2013 [16 favorites]


There will be a controlled explosion by police in Cambridge - Norfolk St.
posted by bobobox at 9:37 AM on April 19, 2013


They've established a pretty small perimeter, unless that's changed since last night.

It has.
posted by asnider at 9:37 AM on April 19, 2013 [1 favorite]


So is the suspect holed up in a building now surrounded by cops? If so, is someone negotiating with him? If not, is it the case that they've basically lost him? Basically, what is actually going on right now?
posted by newdaddy at 9:38 AM on April 19, 2013


newdaddy, I don't think they've located him yet.
posted by mudpuppie at 9:38 AM on April 19, 2013


Sen Grassley : “How can individuals evade authorities and plan such attacks on our soil? How can we beef up security checks on people who wish to enter the U.S.?

on a 9 yr old? "hey kid, ever owned a water-pistol?"
posted by marienbad at 9:38 AM on April 19, 2013 [1 favorite]


newdaddy, where did you hear that he's in a building?
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 9:39 AM on April 19, 2013


would we be having this discussion about wars in other places if they were Irish protestants from Belfast who moved here 10+ years ago?"

You're showing ignorance here. First, we're coming on 15 years since the Good Friday Agreement, without any significant issues.

Second, this is Boston. You can still, to this day, go into bars and see the collection boxes for Sinn Fein. They're now curiosities, but still, you can see them.
posted by Cool Papa Bell at 9:39 AM on April 19, 2013 [7 favorites]


griphus - ask Australia how. We detain asylum seeking children like's they are scary terrorists (I do not condone it).
posted by Burgatron at 9:39 AM on April 19, 2013 [1 favorite]


They can take our lives, and they can take our transportation but they cannot take OUR FREEEUUUUUUUNKS
posted by Potomac Avenue at 9:39 AM on April 19, 2013 [2 favorites]


you know who loved German Shepherds?

Lee Duncan?
posted by drezdn at 9:39 AM on April 19, 2013


It's weird to see people describing this as a whole city lockdown. They've established a pretty small perimeter, unless that's changed since last night.

The area under police cordon is fairly small, but the area in which people are requested to stay indoors encompasses a million people.
posted by Horace Rumpole at 9:39 AM on April 19, 2013 [3 favorites]


Thank you, Ivan, for saving me a lot of work with your thoughtful comment. I will just add that there are Chechens in Kyrgyzstan - they are not a sizable minority, but they are sprinklings of them throughout Central Asia. Leftovers from Stalin's policies as well as newcomers fleeing the shit in their homeland and surrounding republics.

They have a reputation for being very hard men, with a traditional code of honor. Not the kind of people you want to get into conflict with or insult lightly. The fallout from the Russian invasions / occupations will not be over any time soon.
posted by Meatbomb at 9:40 AM on April 19, 2013 [7 favorites]


It's weird to see people describing this as a whole city lockdown.

Well, with the businesses, schools, and government buildings closed, no mass transit, and a suggestion that cars on the road might be stopped, I call it a lockdown. :7)

*shrug* Of course, I am 30 miles away in Rhode Island, but I saw fewer cars with Mass. plates this morning, and my doctor's appointment today at Faulkner Hospital got cancelled because "the whole hospital is locked down," according to the call we got.
posted by wenestvedt at 9:40 AM on April 19, 2013


MsEld: I wonder if there is going to be a boom in child births in boston 9 months from now.
posted by RolandOfEld at 9:40 AM on April 19, 2013 [6 favorites]


on a 9 yr old? "hey kid, ever owned a water-pistol?"

No no no. You can't ask about guns.
posted by inigo2 at 9:41 AM on April 19, 2013 [5 favorites]


Second, this is Boston. You can still, to this day, go into bars and see the collection boxes for Sinn Fein. They're now curiosities, but still, you can see them.

I kind of thought that might be part of their point. Not sure whether I agree with making such a point, but that's neither here nor there.
posted by hoyland at 9:41 AM on April 19, 2013


Boston Police Dept. ‏@Boston_Police
#CommunityAlert: Per Mass State Police: "60% of the search is done but there is still more work to be done."


How could 60% of the search be done? How could they have any idea what percentage done they were?
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 9:41 AM on April 19, 2013 [4 favorites]


MsEld: I wonder if there is going to be a boom in child births in boston 9 months from now.

How unsubtle a hint does she have to drop before you get the message?
posted by jaduncan at 9:42 AM on April 19, 2013 [39 favorites]


"It has."

Link?

"The area under police cordon is fairly small, but the area in which people are requested to stay indoors encompasses a million people."

A request to stay indoors isn't a lockdown.
posted by klangklangston at 9:42 AM on April 19, 2013 [1 favorite]


Second, this is Boston. You can still, to this day, go into bars and see the collection boxes for Sinn Fein. They're now curiosities, but still, you can see them
Ummm, I don't know how to explain this...
posted by fullerine at 9:42 AM on April 19, 2013 [1 favorite]


I work about two blocks from what seems to be the staging area, and listening to the guy on WBUR describe two parking lots I am extremely familiar with as being full of military and police is just... surreal.
posted by Adridne at 9:42 AM on April 19, 2013


How could 60% of the search be done? How could they have any idea what percentage done they were?

I think he was referring to houses in Watertown, specifically?
posted by mudpuppie at 9:43 AM on April 19, 2013


The officers doing the clearing periodically provide progress reports in the way of percentages, for their assigned area.
posted by snuffleupagus at 9:43 AM on April 19, 2013


How many damn hints does she have to drop before you get the message?

Oh don't worry, I know better than to move to Boston.

Oh...... you mean..... omg.
posted by RolandOfEld at 9:43 AM on April 19, 2013 [14 favorites]


And because it's stuck in my head: Chechnya on a Dance Floor.
posted by klangklangston at 9:43 AM on April 19, 2013


How could 60% of the search be done? How could they have any idea what percentage done they were?

It's like a MS Windows progress bar: 60%...62%...37%...85%....58%...
posted by mikepop at 9:43 AM on April 19, 2013 [11 favorites]


Sen Grassley : “How can individuals evade authorities and plan such attacks on our soil? How can we beef up security checks on people who wish to enter the U.S.?

It's a lot of soil, Sentor. And you can't stop crazy unless you want to restrict all citizens to a solitary room and a cable hookup. Which won't work because Comcast will give shitty service while jacking up prices, leading to a bloody revolt. Don't fuck with my History Channel.

How could 60% of the search be done? How could they have any idea what percentage done they were?

"ok, we're gonna cordon off this area. Report back when your specific search area is clear. That way we can see what percentage is done and what areas we still have to search"

This is not rocket science.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 9:44 AM on April 19, 2013


How could 60% of the search be done? How could they have any idea what percentage done they were?

I assume they mean that they have cordoned off a likely area and are 60% done searching the buildings inside that area. As long as you think the suspect was inside the cordoned area, if no one tries to break through the cordon (and presumably can't sneak past it, which is a pretty big assumption but considering everybody's on high alert probably an okay one to make), you only have 40% of the homes remaining to search before you either a.) catch the suspect, or b.) declare the area cleared.
posted by WidgetAlley at 9:44 AM on April 19, 2013


A lot of people work in Cambridge, my father being one of them. They've shut down three T lines, or some of the stations around there anyway. But it basically cuts the T into several disconnected lines.

Those in Boston who were able to get to work are probably getting very little of it done.
posted by chemoboy at 9:45 AM on April 19, 2013


A request to stay indoors isn't a lockdown.

Jeez, why are you nitpicking this? The city has shut down and people are told to stay inside and public transport is halted. It is fair to call this a "lockdown."
posted by Unified Theory at 9:45 AM on April 19, 2013 [7 favorites]




How could 60% of the search be done? How could they have any idea what percentage done they were?

Well, if they had 20 blocks cordoned off and they've searched 12 of those blocks, then they'd be 60% done.
posted by The 10th Regiment of Foot at 9:46 AM on April 19, 2013 [1 favorite]


Why are they still saying not to answer the door unless it's a police officer? Why not, don't answer the door if it's that guy that everyone is looking for?
posted by ChurchHatesTucker at 9:46 AM on April 19, 2013 [1 favorite]


griphus - ask Australia how. We detain asylum seeking children like's they are scary terrorists (I do not condone it).

Australia's tone of public discourse is set by Rupert Murdoch (who owns 70% of the press) and Lynton Crosbie (basically the Australian Karl Rove, a master of deniably-racist dog-whistles), not to mention a thriving right-wing talk-radio sector. Over the 11 or so years of the Howard government, and the handful of years of relatively spineless, illiberal Labor government, this has taken on a corrosive tone, manifesting itself in everything from idiots wearing the Australian flag as capes bullying brown-skinned people at music festivals in the name of patriotism to the popularly held idea that if we let any Muslims from a war zone in, some of them end up murdering us, and even if they don't, their sons may form gangs and rape our daughters once they hit puberty (because, as is unspoken, that's what those people do). In the eyes of a lot of the population, the safe/tolerable level of Muslim migrants is zero.

(I know because, sad to say, some of my relatives are amongst the bigots.)
posted by acb at 9:46 AM on April 19, 2013 [1 favorite]


empath: This kid was actively seeking to murder more people.

We don't really even know that it's the same kid! It might be, and if he ends up dead, I'm sure he'll be declared as the bomber, but until we have a trial and see some real evidence, we know almost nothing.

What we know is what the police are claiming. The Boston police, however, are widely known for being a bunch of fucking idiots.
posted by Malor at 9:46 AM on April 19, 2013 [2 favorites]




Sen Grassley : “How can individuals evade authorities and plan such attacks on our soil? How can we beef up security checks on people who wish to enter the U.S.?

And yet people still insist that this won't mess up immigration reform because "Republicans need the Hispanic vote!" Republicans also said they were going to stop being homophobic at the exact same time, yet the RNC voted unanimously to keep anti-equality measures as part of their platform. Unanimously! How is this any different?
posted by zombieflanders at 9:47 AM on April 19, 2013 [2 favorites]


If J_tsar is the right twitter account, I feel sorry for anyone who tangentially tweeted with him, people are going youtube comment level crazy on anyone who interacted with him that hasn't locked their account.
posted by drezdn at 9:47 AM on April 19, 2013


Grozny On The Charles
posted by homunculus at 9:48 AM on April 19, 2013


My sister in law is in lockdown at MGH. My brother in law is at our house in Somerville because their place in Medford lost power. My husband and I are about to board a plane to get back to Boston. Hopefully we'll land to nothing but good news.
posted by lydhre at 9:48 AM on April 19, 2013


Personally, I think the relationship between first and second-generation immigrants who adopt terrorist causes says a lot more about the nature of class, prejudice, and economics in the West than immigration.

Yes, but to people like my dad, these two are just "a pair of Muslim idiots."

I don't have a lot of hope for the level of discourse re: this whole shit sandwich of tragedy. Metafilter, you're my only hope!
posted by ablazingsaddle at 9:48 AM on April 19, 2013


Why are they still saying not to answer the door unless it's a police officer? Why not, don't answer the door if it's that guy that everyone is looking for?

Because there are other people they may be looking for?
posted by edgeways at 9:48 AM on April 19, 2013


CNN is interviewing two of Dzhokhar's friends from high school, who were on the wrestling team with him. It's incredibly sad. They love this guy.
posted by FelliniBlank at 9:49 AM on April 19, 2013


I don't know why they'd need coffee delivered; there's a Dunkin' in the Arsenal Mall, and a Starbucks across the street at the Target.

Probably not staffed right now.


Au contraire, mon ami. Dunkies confirmed on Twitter that they asked the cops if they were allowed to stay open and got permission. The only thing open in Watertown right now is Dunk's. There's something perfect about that.
posted by Diablevert at 9:49 AM on April 19, 2013 [13 favorites]


And to add: My dad is a relatively liberal dude who lives in a suburb of Boston. I don't even want to know what the Huffpost comments section is like.
posted by ablazingsaddle at 9:49 AM on April 19, 2013


*humms ‘Girl from Ipanema’*
posted by Smedleyman at 9:49 AM on April 19, 2013 [2 favorites]


And here we go: Senator Says Boston Bombing Should Be Factor in Immigration Debate

On the one hand, I'd prefer that the bill go through because there are people suffering because they're undocumented.

On the other hand, tone-deaf Republicans blethering on and on about DREAD FOREIGNERS IN OUR MIDST and so on? ¡No me tire en ese zarzal!
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 9:50 AM on April 19, 2013 [1 favorite]


The only think open in Watertown right now is Dunk's.

Perfect.
posted by chemoboy at 9:50 AM on April 19, 2013


Why are they still saying not to answer the door unless it's a police officer? Why not, don't answer the door if it's that guy that everyone is looking for?

If the guy they're looking for takes a hostage and makes said hostage go up to your door at gunpoint...
posted by headspace at 9:51 AM on April 19, 2013 [1 favorite]


Oh yeah, and seeing the streets devoid of any sort of traffic: eerie.

Eerie Photos Of Boston Looking Like A Ghost Town.
posted by ericb at 9:51 AM on April 19, 2013


I would imagine you wouldn't answer the door because we don't know for sure that POI#2 doesn't have other accomplices.

I haven't been able to catch up, but were there retractions and/or apologies for outing Tripathi?
posted by CancerMan at 9:51 AM on April 19, 2013




Man, I'm having a hard time reconciling everyone's cheerful personal accounts of Djohar and this current manhunt. It doesn't make sense to me.
posted by cloeburner at 9:52 AM on April 19, 2013 [3 favorites]


Wow, I'm on the west coast, and was following this until late last night. The last thing I expected was to wake up to this. When I went to sleep, people thought the suspect was the missing Brown kid. (I bet his family is freaked out.) Wow.
posted by feloniousmonk at 9:53 AM on April 19, 2013 [1 favorite]


For those of us who spent our youth growing up in Belfast in the '60s and '70s when random bombings were part of daily life, we might offer a different perspective on this crazyness.
posted by marvin at 9:53 AM on April 19, 2013 [3 favorites]


>> According to a friend and other evidence examined by @ABC News, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev’s twitter account appears to be @J_tsar

That seems kind of unlikely. There are lots of really innocuous tweets from April 15.


Seems much more likely when you read through his tweets, and see some of the pictures. There are a few tweets that seem likely to be used (cherry-picked) by the media to steer the conversation:

a decade in america already, i want out

Brothers at the mosque either think I'm a convert or that I'm from Algeria or Syria, just the other day a guy asked me how I came to Islam

I meet the most amazing people, spent the day with this Jamaican Muslim convert who shared his whole story with me, my religion is the truth

Буду погибать мaлодым
posted by trueluk at 9:54 AM on April 19, 2013


Au contraire, mon ami. Dunkies confirmed on Twitter that they asked the cops if they were allowed to stay open and got permission. The only think open in Watertown right now is Dunk's. There's something perfect about that.

After the cops exfiltrated me from my stabby post-psychotic-break ex-girlfriend's basement, they dropped me off at a nearby Krispy Kreme. I got the impression it was their idea of a sanctuary.
posted by a snickering nuthatch at 9:54 AM on April 19, 2013 [22 favorites]


x
posted by marvin at 9:54 AM on April 19, 2013


Oh, ferchrissakes.
posted by MissySedai at 9:54 AM on April 19, 2013 [3 favorites]


Scanner just said that a woman texted her mother that she's being held by a man with a gun. (Could be nothing.)
posted by mudpuppie at 9:54 AM on April 19, 2013


I was just about to turn off the scanner when "Woman texting her mother that she is being held by a man with a gun."
posted by chemoboy at 9:55 AM on April 19, 2013




you may want to listen to the scanner about now, just to get a sense of the pace of the operation, if you're feeling itchy. Everyone is working methodically and responding quickly to things that happen, etc.
posted by snuffleupagus at 9:55 AM on April 19, 2013


Personally, I think the relationship between first and second-generation immigrants who adopt terrorist causes says a lot more about the nature of class, prejudice, and economics in the West than immigration.

Yes, but to people like my dad, these two are just "a pair of Muslim idiots."

I don't have a lot of hope for the level of discourse re: this whole shit sandwich of tragedy. Metafilter, you're my only hope!
posted by ablazingsaddle at 9:48 AM on April 19 [+] [!]


It's because they're Muslims!

No, it's because the US is bad!

You guys are two sides of the same political coin.
posted by rr at 9:55 AM on April 19, 2013 [4 favorites]


Tweet from Adam Sandler: "Boston is probably the only major city that if you fuck with them, they will shut down the whole city ... stop everything ... and find you."
posted by ericb at 9:56 AM on April 19, 2013 [24 favorites]


Just heard a friend of mine's husband was getting on a plane this morning to go back to Boston for his grandmother's funeral. God knows what he's going to be getting into today.
posted by Celsius1414 at 9:56 AM on April 19, 2013


Family Research Council blames “sexual liberalism” for Boston, Newtown

Damn those sexually liberal Muslims, with their Islamic gay marriages...
posted by acb at 9:56 AM on April 19, 2013 [11 favorites]


Oh, the Black Hawk helicopters are here.
posted by ericb at 9:56 AM on April 19, 2013


What is the working scanner feed? The one at Broadcastify says: "Boston area law enforcement feeds are temporarily offline to protect law enforcement resources and their efforts during the manhunt underway in the Boston Metro area."
posted by enn at 9:57 AM on April 19, 2013 [2 favorites]






So what's up with the military helicopters? Has martial law been declared?
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 9:58 AM on April 19, 2013


Man, I'm having a hard time reconciling everyone's cheerful personal accounts of Djohar and this current manhunt.

I've wondered for a while now (particularly after seeing that photo of him running from the blast) if he didn't really realize what was in the backpack, just did as his brother asked, or perhaps thought it would just be some smoke and not much carnage.

I mean, probably not, but I agree that it's hard to reconcile the two.
posted by anastasiav at 9:58 AM on April 19, 2013 [2 favorites]


Thanks snuffleupagus.
posted by enn at 9:58 AM on April 19, 2013


maybe the black helicopters were always there...
posted by Burgatron at 9:58 AM on April 19, 2013 [7 favorites]


No, there is a potential need for quick deployment of EOD teams. As a general statement.
posted by snuffleupagus at 9:58 AM on April 19, 2013



Tweet from Adam Sandler...


Not that it really matters, but that's not Adam Sandler, thats a fake account.
posted by Potomac Avenue at 9:59 AM on April 19, 2013 [2 favorites]


So what's up with the military helicopters? Has martial law been declared?

they're scanning rooftops.
posted by mudpuppie at 9:59 AM on April 19, 2013


trueluk: that last line, passed through a google translation:

Буду погибать мaлодым -- "I will die malodym"

I know nothing about Russian, Chechneyan, Dagestani, etc. Any thoughts on what "malodym" means?
posted by wormwood23 at 9:59 AM on April 19, 2013


I heard on Boston NPR that Logan is still flying, but all the airlines have waived change fees.

And if that doesn't get your attention, helicopters circling overhead sure won't.
posted by wenestvedt at 9:59 AM on April 19, 2013 [2 favorites]


Evidently their mother stole $1600 worth of clothes in Natick last year.

From Lord & Taylor. (via Business Insider, which has published mum's address.)
posted by wensink at 9:59 AM on April 19, 2013


I'm on a graveyard shift at work, been glued to screens following this for nearly 11 hours. I'm going a bit batty.

Please some one update about the text mother held by gun story...
posted by Burgatron at 10:00 AM on April 19, 2013


"Jeez, why are you nitpicking this? The city has shut down and people are told to stay inside and public transport is halted. It is fair to call this a "lockdown.""

Because people are freaking out about civil liberties in a way that I think is overblown and unhelpful. And describing it as a "lockdown" of the whole city plays into that, instead of calling it a lockdown of the neighborhood while the search continues.
posted by klangklangston at 10:00 AM on April 19, 2013 [2 favorites]




You guys are two sides of the same political coin.

I don't think saying that these guys were probably motivated by a mix of feelings of personal alienation and a bunch of other shit (including religious zealotry) is the same as saying that the US is "bad." Nor is it "the other side" of saying that these two guys are just a pair of typical Muslims.

False equivalency brigade, buzz off.
posted by ablazingsaddle at 10:00 AM on April 19, 2013 [1 favorite]


Буду погибать мaлодым -- "I will die malodym"

"I will die young."
posted by griphus at 10:00 AM on April 19, 2013 [6 favorites]


So what's up with the military helicopters? Has martial law been declared?

Who doesn't love marshmellows?!
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 10:00 AM on April 19, 2013 [1 favorite]


For those of us who spent our youth growing up in Belfast in the '60s and '70s when random bombings were part of daily life, we might [offer] a different perspective on this crazyness.

Of all the perspectives I'd like to be irrelevant to my life, I'd like yours to be most irrelevant.

I don't know what they do if they don't find this kid today. Watching last night, it made sense at first: The chase had been over for an hour or two, they had cordoned off a chunk of one town and advising the people nearby --- close enough to walk to in that hour or two --- to keep in. By now, if the kid's not bleeding to death in a hedge somewhere he could be anywhere. I don't think they can keep us in here for ever. In an hour or two the natives are going to start to get restless.
posted by Diablevert at 10:01 AM on April 19, 2013 [2 favorites]


they're scanning rooftops.

I thought the military wasn't supposed to be doing police work. Just curious, given how this has escalated.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 10:01 AM on April 19, 2013 [3 favorites]


Please some one update about the text mother held by gun story...

They haven't said anything else except that it came in via a 911 call. Right now they're checking a rooftop at (undisclosed address).
posted by mudpuppie at 10:01 AM on April 19, 2013


Thanks, griphus.
posted by wormwood23 at 10:01 AM on April 19, 2013


I thought the military wasn't supposed to be doing police work. Just curious, given how this has escalated.

They can assist, if requested by civil authorities.
posted by BobbyVan at 10:02 AM on April 19, 2013 [2 favorites]


There was a mistaken report earlier about "military helicopters" that turned out to belong to the FBI. Cite via MyFoxBoston (seen on Reddit update thread).
posted by Celsius1414 at 10:02 AM on April 19, 2013 [1 favorite]


I thought the military wasn't supposed to be doing police work

Maybe there is the distinction between the MA national guard and the regular army.
posted by shothotbot at 10:02 AM on April 19, 2013


From a friend's FB post:
Things we'll do to keep people safe: Lock down an entire city for hours.

Things we won't do: A 5 min background check before you buy a gun.
posted by ericb at 10:02 AM on April 19, 2013 [103 favorites]


We've read about military assets being borrowed by LEOs before. In the death valley hikers thread, I think?
posted by snuffleupagus at 10:02 AM on April 19, 2013


It's like the 5-star Wanted Level in GTAIV, except it's actually happening.
posted by killdevil at 10:02 AM on April 19, 2013 [28 favorites]


Oh, ferchrissakes.

hmmnnnfff...... the media is just falling all over itself on this one. I thought the day before yesterday was bad, but today is dropping that bar down way below ground.
posted by lampshade at 10:03 AM on April 19, 2013


Swat team surrounding house where hostage is believed to be.

I thought the military wasn't supposed to be doing police work. Just curious, given how this has escalated.

I think they're state police helicopters.
posted by mudpuppie at 10:03 AM on April 19, 2013


Timeline of the hunt of the marathon attack suspects (Boston Globe)

OK, I have to say, now I feel a little bit vindicated. That 7-Eleven is exactly where my (hastily Google Mapped) map was centered when I linked it in the thread last night. Maybe my comment was useful after all!
posted by limeonaire at 10:03 AM on April 19, 2013 [1 favorite]


Evidently their mother stole $1600 worth of clothes in Natick last year.

From Lord & Taylor. (via Business Insider, which has published mum's address.)


I'm trying to not get wrapped up in the sordid details of all this craziness and remember that people have died and had their legs blown off, but good lord, this whole story is so fucking weird.
posted by ablazingsaddle at 10:03 AM on April 19, 2013 [7 favorites]


I think they're state police helicopters.

That makes more sense, thanks.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 10:04 AM on April 19, 2013


This one is zebras.
posted by Miko at 10:04 AM on April 19, 2013 [4 favorites]


Maybe there is the distinction between the MA national guard and the regular army.

There is. The governor can set fairly arbitrary tasking for the national guard, as despite the name it belongs to the state.
posted by jaduncan at 10:04 AM on April 19, 2013


I heard on Boston NPR that Logan is still flying, but all the airlines have waived change fees. And if that doesn't get your attention, helicopters circling overhead sure won't.

I'm actually in the middle of trying to refigure a conference schedule because two of the talks are by people who can't get to Logan. Of course, it's also been snowing here, so they're probably not going to be the only people with travel issues.
posted by hoyland at 10:04 AM on April 19, 2013


Re: helicopters, I would imagine that, with the possible threat of further bombings due to this guy running around, they want as many eyes in the sky as possible, along with mobile EOD teams and possibly even aerial fire suppression (big conflagrations in residential neighborhoods, like the kind that might result from bombings, can spread quickly when the conditions are right, and everyone is in their home at the moment, so evacuations due to widespread fire could provide cover for the suspect to escape in.)
posted by WidgetAlley at 10:04 AM on April 19, 2013


I thought the military wasn't supposed to be doing police work. Just curious, given how this has escalated.

Posse Comitatus. National Guard (and Coast Guard) can help out.
posted by Dr.Enormous at 10:05 AM on April 19, 2013 [1 favorite]


‏@mattomic
"I heard it on CNN!" CNN: "I heard it on Reddit!" Reddit: "Police scanner!" Police: "We were mentioning a tweet!" Twitter: "I'M 14 LOL SWAG"
posted by Potomac Avenue at 10:05 AM on April 19, 2013 [48 favorites]



"It has."

Link?


The FPP already covers this. Reading some of your other comments, I guess "lockdown" is maybe the wrong word. It's not like marshal law has been declared, but the entire city is essentially shutdown.
posted by asnider at 10:06 AM on April 19, 2013 [1 favorite]


The Onion: Jesus, This Week.
posted by ericb at 10:06 AM on April 19, 2013 [5 favorites]


"I will die young."

I'm sure I said that more than once, when I was young. But like Bob Dylan said, I was so much older then.
posted by philip-random at 10:07 AM on April 19, 2013 [1 favorite]


According to the wiki on the Posse Comitatus Act (an Act, let me just say, which is RIPE for a porno rip-off title) the prohibition on the military enforcing state law does not apply to the state national guard or the national guard of a neighboring state if invited by the governor.
posted by shothotbot at 10:07 AM on April 19, 2013 [1 favorite]


The governor can set fairly arbitrary tasking for the national guard, as despite the name it belongs to the state.

For the gentleman from Arkansas, the people of Massachusetts DO have assault rifles. Luckily for them they are in the hand of their well organized and constitutionally necessary militia.
posted by The 10th Regiment of Foot at 10:08 AM on April 19, 2013 [33 favorites]


Remember all the xenophobia, hatred and jingoism that happened after 9/11? Yeah, it's coming back. Maybe not as badly or as acutely, but it's coming back. Like clockwork.
hey cool i'm gonna step on over to brazil maybe for a while

you guys want anything
posted by This, of course, alludes to you at 10:09 AM on April 19, 2013


So anyway what beef do Chechens have against America?

What beef did these two Chechens have?

For real. Exactly what we thought would happen if the perpetrators weren't reg'lar white guys is happening.


Yes. If it were white Tea Party types, a lot more people would be making hay while the sun was shining.
posted by Tanizaki at 10:09 AM on April 19, 2013 [1 favorite]


I think relevant Federal LEOs can just straight out borrow military assets if the military feels like helping out, too. Maybe not whole units, before it gets questionable, but a few helicopters or bomb disposal teams. This isn't just a criminal investigation, its a massive public safety operation.
posted by snuffleupagus at 10:09 AM on April 19, 2013


Woman believed to be hostage is "standing at the door."

(This is suspenseful.)
posted by mudpuppie at 10:10 AM on April 19, 2013


Coast Guard

USCG isn't subject to Posse Comitatus because they have a primary law enforcement role, just like the FBI does.

This is true even in time of war when the USCG becomes a department of the US Navy, and the USCG provides law enforcement detachments (LEDETS) to the US Navy when the US Navy is acting in a border role.
posted by eriko at 10:10 AM on April 19, 2013


Timeline of the hunt of the marathon attack suspects (Boston Globe)

Looks like the Globe doesn't know that Norfolk St., Cambridge is in Cambridge; they've got it marked near Kenmore Sq.
posted by Mapes at 10:10 AM on April 19, 2013


Yes. If it were white Tea Party types, a lot more people would be making hay while the sun was shining.

There might be generalizations about "Tea Party types" but not all white people.
posted by sweetkid at 10:10 AM on April 19, 2013 [7 favorites]


Woman believed to be hostage is "standing at the door."
(This is suspenseful.)


I may be reading this wrong but it looks like you're enjoying this.

I thought we were going to stop with the police scanner updates?
posted by headnsouth at 10:11 AM on April 19, 2013 [4 favorites]


Yes. If it were white Tea Party types, a lot more people would be making hay while the sun was shining.

Like everyone did every time there has been a terrorist attack in the US by a white male right wing Christian?
posted by MisantropicPainforest at 10:11 AM on April 19, 2013 [10 favorites]


If you want suspenseful real time updates, try this twitter stream.
posted by Potomac Avenue at 10:13 AM on April 19, 2013 [2 favorites]


And yet people still insist that this won't mess up immigration reform because "Republicans need the Hispanic vote!" Republicans also said they were going to stop being homophobic at the exact same time, yet the RNC voted unanimously to keep anti-equality measures as part of their platform. Unanimously! How is this any different?

No, people are insisting progressives stop being whiny defeatists. Did you ponder the irony of using gay marriage as your analogy issue which the GOP has been "messing up" with their backwards hate-mongering?

How about progressives grow a pair, defend their values in public, and assume their fellow citizens are adults who can be convinced to share progressive values.

Ann Coulter and Republican Troll Senator said moron troll things. Time to raise the white flag of defeat and abandon our values!!
posted by crayz at 10:13 AM on April 19, 2013 [14 favorites]


I would like to say any mefi moderator dealing with this thread will never pay for a drink around me again.
posted by The Whelk at 10:13 AM on April 19, 2013 [79 favorites]


klangklangston: “Because people are freaking out about civil liberties in a way that I think is overblown and unhelpful. And describing it as a 'lockdown' of the whole city plays into that, instead of calling it a lockdown of the neighborhood while the search continues.”

I agree with this; and while I expressed some concern about civil liberties in my earlier comment here, I want to say that I really don't know what's happening. I have some biases; good friends of mine are Occupy Boston people, and their experience with the BPD hasn't always been stellar. Also, I have to say that I think part of my reaction has to do with frustration and annoyance and bitterness and worry that this was even happening at all, and a wish that it wasn't, in talking to my friends locked in their homes and apartments in Boston and left to worry for who knows how long.

I actually feel like a nuanced view is called for in this situation. I believe wholeheartedly that the authorities are doing everything they can to catch this dangerous guy, and I understand why they've done everything they've done. I also think that, in the heat of the moment, it's easy for someone with great intentions to go a little too far. What I have in mind here is that I'm sure a nonzero number of innocent bystanders have had to find themselves on the wrong end of a gun until they could be cleared over the past 12 hours. Was that done correctly? Did someone get overanxious and act in a way that wasn't called for, by reason or by law? That's something we'll be sorting out in the days to come, and I'm sure we will get a good picture then of exactly what has happened in the past day.

Until then, however, if it even needs to be said, the authorities are absolutely on our side, a wholesale breach of civil liberties has certainly not occurred, and most importantly I think it's awesome that everybody is complying with what the Boston Police (National Guard, etc) are asking of them.

The sooner this is over, the better.
posted by koeselitz at 10:14 AM on April 19, 2013 [5 favorites]


This seems to be the relevant passage in MA state law that authorizes the National Guard.

And I don't know that I'd call it martial law either. It sort of quacks like that duck, but it's only been one morning so far, and no one's talking about suspending habeas corpus. More like a state of emergency, as during Katrina.
posted by RobotVoodooPower at 10:14 AM on April 19, 2013


RE: J_tsar twitter... Lives in Cambridge, tweets about owning a Honda...
posted by drezdn at 10:14 AM on April 19, 2013


Yes. If it were white Tea Party types, a lot more people would be making hay while the sun was shining.

Sure, but this is also a really great way to deflect the fact that attitudes have been racist and shitty (detaining some random Saudi dude in the hospital, describing the suspect as dark-skinned when he looks super white to me).

So now I know that the white Tea party types didn't blow up a bunch of people on Marathon Monday, but I do know that a lot of people are still racist dicks who like to make false equivalencies and throw back patting parties in the aftermath of a tragedy.
posted by ablazingsaddle at 10:14 AM on April 19, 2013 [2 favorites]


Is there a no scanner update rule? I thought it was no addresses.

In any case, I'm not "enjoying it." I'm just having a hard time not listening.
posted by mudpuppie at 10:15 AM on April 19, 2013


Damnit, The Whelk, we need them to keep moderating, not all hop on a plane to New York.
posted by Jahaza at 10:15 AM on April 19, 2013 [3 favorites]


I thought the military wasn't supposed to be doing police work.

Clearly you haven't watched the end of The Blues Brothers enough times.
posted by edgeways at 10:15 AM on April 19, 2013 [10 favorites]


Wasn't there a Lords and Taylor connection to the bombing... Like as a source of video footage?
posted by drezdn at 10:15 AM on April 19, 2013


I think it's awesome that everybody is complying with what the Boston Police (National Guard, etc) are asking of them.

People in Boston are pretty obedient.
posted by sweetkid at 10:16 AM on April 19, 2013


The Boston Police have requested that no scanner chatter be disseminated on various media.
posted by cooker girl at 10:16 AM on April 19, 2013 [2 favorites]


RE: J_tsar twitter... Lives in Cambridge, tweets about owning a Honda...

BREAKING: Suspect plays workout tapes like Fonda.
posted by dry white toast at 10:17 AM on April 19, 2013 [9 favorites]


Mod note: Please maybe be mindful about the scanner thing. We're not making a rule but we'd like to not HAVE to make one
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 10:17 AM on April 19, 2013 [6 favorites]




There are some pretty nasty tweets circulating about the woman who appears in the boxing photos with the dead bomber. I hope she is safe and has people around her in the coming days.
posted by jamesonandwater at 10:18 AM on April 19, 2013 [5 favorites]


FWIW disseminating scanner traffic is technically a violation of the Communications Act. Not that they've ever enforced it, but...
posted by smoothvirus at 10:19 AM on April 19, 2013


Re: scanners I think if you want to listen, listen. They have other channels for information they want to be truly secure. Nevertheless the authorities have requested that specific information not be relayed. Personally, I feel it is proper to comply.

Regarding military and police cooperation, this document is old, but describes how the Army Technical Escort Unit participates in events like Super Bowl so as to be able to respond to incidents. Some soliders who do EOD provide brief remarks.
posted by snuffleupagus at 10:19 AM on April 19, 2013


People in Boston are pretty obedient.

That's a weird thing to say. People in Boston are pretty scared.
posted by oinopaponton at 10:19 AM on April 19, 2013 [1 favorite]


People in Boston are pretty obedient.

That's a weird thing to say. People in Boston are pretty scared.


HAMBURGER
posted by axiom at 10:21 AM on April 19, 2013 [1 favorite]



People in Boston are pretty obedient.

That's a weird thing to say. People in Boston are pretty scared.


Sorry, that came out wrong. But there's generally a lot of rule following in Boston that I think helps in situations like this. Community oriented, good minded stuff. That's what I meant. Came out wrong.
posted by sweetkid at 10:21 AM on April 19, 2013 [4 favorites]


Looking at the front page of CNN.com at the moment ("WHERE IS HE? MANHUNT FOR SECOND SUSPECT") reminds me of something out of Philip K. Dick.
posted by KokuRyu at 10:22 AM on April 19, 2013 [5 favorites]


Yeah, sweetkid, thanks for clarifying. That sounded disdainful to my mind's ear, and I'm glad it wasn't intended that way.
posted by Rustic Etruscan at 10:22 AM on April 19, 2013 [1 favorite]


But now, when smart phones and social media are common currency, we have entered a new era. One in which the flow of information has reached epic and epidemic proportions. News anchors must say something to fill the time on air. Producers cannot switch to other stories and come back when news has changed because fresh news is measured in fractions of a minute, and must compete with large social media platforms like Twitter whose reputations are not at stake if their content is incorrect.
Switching to other stories and coming back when news has changed is exactly what my local NPR station has been consistently doing.
posted by Flunkie at 10:22 AM on April 19, 2013 [1 favorite]




he looks super white to me

We now know the ethnic background of the bombers.* We don't need anymore of this eyeball analysis.

* Well except for those who still question whether these are actually the guys (wtf!?)
posted by 0 at 10:24 AM on April 19, 2013 [2 favorites]


There can no longer be peaceful coexistence between combat sports and endurance sports.
posted by Free word order! at 10:25 AM on April 19, 2013 [2 favorites]


Until then, however, if it even needs to be said, the authorities are absolutely on our side, a wholesale breach of civil liberties has certainly not occurred, and most importantly I think it's awesome that everybody is complying with what the Boston Police (National Guard, etc) are asking of them.

I agree. But there are going to be some interesting civil liberties questions in the next couple of weeks. The one that comes to mind is whether a cop's memory of a grow operation or displays of kiddie porn seen in the searches today will constitute probable cause for a search warrant down the road once this has all died down.
posted by rtimmel at 10:25 AM on April 19, 2013 [1 favorite]


Overnight Coverage Of Boston’s Mayhem Underscores The Power Of Local Media

Very much in agreement with this Deadline article. The local news stream last night was very calm and professional but also had good reporters in the right places saying meaningful, calming things rather than spraying panic like CNN, et al.
posted by Potomac Avenue at 10:25 AM on April 19, 2013 [3 favorites]


I understand the sensitivity of specific information re: scanners, but is there any source of info for those of us with slow Internet? I can't stream audio. Anyone willing to post non-specific breaking news, unconfirmed or otherwise?
posted by karst at 10:26 AM on April 19, 2013


From twitter on the lockdown: "If this were Grand Theft Auto, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev would definitely have 6 stars right now."
posted by jaduncan at 10:27 AM on April 19, 2013 [10 favorites]


karst, consider the reddit update thread: http://www.reddit.com/r/news/comments/1codv1/live_boston_update_thread_unofficial_4/
posted by whyareyouatriangle at 10:27 AM on April 19, 2013


We now know the ethnic background of the bombers.* We don't need anymore of this eyeball analysis.

Sorry if I was unclear. My point was that the original eyeball analysis and speculation was just boilerplate racial profiling.

In other news, it's weird to read about Cambridge Rindge and Latin in this context. CRLS. I know so many people who went to school there. They threw much better parties than the Brookline kids.
posted by ablazingsaddle at 10:27 AM on April 19, 2013 [1 favorite]


If they have ID'd this guy's phone, I don't think that it'd be too hard to get the authority to remotely turn on the microphone and/or camera. If the phone still has a battery in it.

http://www.zdnet.com/news/fbi-taps-cell-phone-mic-as-eavesdropping-tool/150467
posted by zerobyproxy at 10:27 AM on April 19, 2013


If you can stream video, go here. It's close-captioned.
posted by cooker girl at 10:27 AM on April 19, 2013


WRT my earlier comment - I have no insider info, just was guessing from the front-page pix on the Boston Globe website. I had guessed you wouldn't line up dozens of police officers, guns drawn etc in front of a house that was just occupied by garden-variety Watertown citizens(?) "teams moved into position in Watertown..." I know nothing of actual police work.
posted by newdaddy at 10:27 AM on April 19, 2013


Anyone willing to post non-specific breaking news, unconfirmed or otherwise?

CNN?
posted by burnmp3s at 10:28 AM on April 19, 2013 [13 favorites]


Looking at the front page of CNN.com at the moment ("WHERE IS HE? MANHUNT FOR SECOND SUSPECT") reminds me of something out of Philip K. Dick.


I want to point out that this is not an exaggerated headline.
posted by Nonsteroidal Anti-Inflammatory Drug at 10:28 AM on April 19, 2013


karst: “I understand the sensitivity of specific information re: scanners, but is there any source of info for those of us with slow Internet? I can't stream audio. Anyone willing to post non-specific breaking news, unconfirmed or otherwise?”

If you want the firehose, using as little bandwidth as possible, you probably want Twitter. (That's a link to the realtime updating tweets on hashtag #Boston.)
posted by koeselitz at 10:28 AM on April 19, 2013


The one that comes to mind is whether a cop's memory of a grow operation or displays of kiddie porn seen in the searches today will constitute probable cause for a search warrant down the road once this has all died down.

I <3 civil liberties, but let's jump off that bridge when we come to it, please?
posted by ablazingsaddle at 10:28 AM on April 19, 2013


karst, consider the reddit update thread: http://www.reddit.com/r/news/comments/1codv1/live_boston_update_thread_unofficial_4/

And don't get your hopes up when something is posted, as it's very raw and a lot of stuff is followed in minutes by the equivalent of "never mind, scientists say it was an earthquake and not Godzilla attacking Tokyo."
posted by Celsius1414 at 10:29 AM on April 19, 2013 [1 favorite]



If they have ID'd this guy's phone, I don't think that it'd be too hard to get the authority to remotely turn on the microphone and/or camera. If the phone still has a battery in it.

http://www.zdnet.com/news/fbi-taps-cell-phone-mic-as-eavesdropping-tool/150467


Wouldn't they need to tap the phone/install an app onto it, or do all legal phones have a law-enforcement-controllable facility for directly accessing the microphone?
posted by acb at 10:29 AM on April 19, 2013 [1 favorite]


It's sad to know I will never do or post anything more popular on Metafilter than getting stuck in an elevator. (I totaled over 400 favorites on that one.)
posted by dances_with_sneetches at 10:29 AM on April 19, 2013 [23 favorites]


People in Boston are pretty obedient.

I actually had two errands in Watertown this morning. I'm just outside of the official locked down towns but the office downtown is closed, there is no subway or buses, police all over. Staying at home and watching the coverage just makes sense.

Police all over but I was at the edges of the site a couple days ago and the police were exceptionally polite to everyone.
posted by sammyo at 10:31 AM on April 19, 2013


Mapes, the Globe's map looks fine to be. You may be seeing the controlled detonation site near Kenmore or an additional Norfolk St because we are not creative with naming things here in Boston.
posted by maryr at 10:31 AM on April 19, 2013


The news video stream linked to just now offers reportage of recent developments. At least re the clearing for the controlled explosion.
posted by snuffleupagus at 10:31 AM on April 19, 2013




Is it completely unrelated to point out some good news this morning? Serbia and Kosovo are starting to normalize diplomatic ties. Sometimes Slavic states and breakaway Muslim enclaves can learn to live with one another. BBC article.
posted by Apocryphon at 10:32 AM on April 19, 2013 [10 favorites]


Boston officials asking the public to leave their workplaces and go home, if they got to work before the shelter-in-place was in effect.
posted by cooker girl at 10:32 AM on April 19, 2013


From the ZDNet article, probably my favorite article of 2006: 'An article in the Financial Times last year said mobile providers can "remotely install a piece of software on to any handset, without the owner's knowledge, which will activate the microphone even when its owner is not making a call."'
posted by sudama at 10:32 AM on April 19, 2013


I think that the phone carriers/manufacturers have built in back doors for law enforcement. However, I am assuming that. If anyone knows for sure....
posted by zerobyproxy at 10:32 AM on April 19, 2013


Mapes, the Globe's map looks fine to be.

They have since corrected the Norfolk St. address. (Several blocks away from my apartment!).
posted by Mapes at 10:34 AM on April 19, 2013




In addition to Bostonians being "obedient" or "scared" or whathaveyou, I'd like to point out that being asked not to go to work on Friday after a stressful week? Not that hard a sell.
posted by maryr at 10:34 AM on April 19, 2013 [21 favorites]


You'll also find gems like this in the Reddit thread:

EDIT 200 1:26: Correspondent /u/potato_bus says another press conference is coming up.

posted by Celsius1414 at 10:34 AM on April 19, 2013 [1 favorite]


I feel badly for the hourly wage workers who won't get paid today due to the lockdown*. The loss of one day's pay can really wreck some people's finances.

*or whatever we're calling it now
posted by desjardins at 10:34 AM on April 19, 2013 [15 favorites]


zerobyproxy: "I think that the phone carriers/manufacturers have built in back doors for law enforcement. However, I am assuming that. If anyone knows for sure...."

... they're under a draconian NDA or working for a LEO.
posted by brokkr at 10:34 AM on April 19, 2013 [2 favorites]


People in Boston are pretty obedient.

Is there where I get to slap our collective back over the lack of looting?
posted by wensink at 10:35 AM on April 19, 2013 [1 favorite]


Toronto aunt of Boston bombing suspects says nephews innocent. SunNews. CBC.
posted by Kabanos at 10:35 AM on April 19, 2013


People in Boston are pretty obedient.

I'd say "cooperative" is probably a better word..
posted by samsara at 10:35 AM on April 19, 2013 [5 favorites]


One of the people J-tsar tweeted with (and seemed to know in real life) seems to think that it's the same person but her view of him doesn't match the police reports.

I wish his twitter friends would lock their accounts. I know the people tweeting them the nasty messages are just internet tough guys, but I found them pretty upsetting to read.
posted by jamesonandwater at 10:36 AM on April 19, 2013 [1 favorite]


Mapes - I used to live over on Columbia, my friends lived at Broadway & Tremont and at Tremont & Hampshire. I am very grateful we have all moved away from Area 4 since.
posted by maryr at 10:36 AM on April 19, 2013


Um I'm sure King George disagrees.
posted by Apocryphon at 10:36 AM on April 19, 2013 [3 favorites]


MEMA spokesman on WHDH just announced that they don't expect people trapped at work to stay there, and to feel free to drive or take a taxi (which are running again) or call a friend for a ride. Which I think should help take the stink of "martial law" off this and put it in the rightful context of "we don't want a lot of civilians outside because of crossfire/misidentification issues."
posted by Freon at 10:37 AM on April 19, 2013


Oh, come the fuck on. What do I have to do, post a dot?
posted by klangklangston at 10:37 AM on April 19, 2013 [1 favorite]


Interview with their uncle in DC -
Interviewer: "what what behind it?"
Uncle - "Being losers!"
Really?

Is there a link to this interview somewhere?
posted by Flunkie at 10:38 AM on April 19, 2013


Toronto aunt of Boston bombing suspects says nephews innocent. SunNews. CBC.

How dumb do you have to be to speak up and say something like that at a time like this...
posted by KokuRyu at 10:39 AM on April 19, 2013


I think that the phone carriers/manufacturers have built in back doors for law enforcement. However, I am assuming that. If anyone knows for sure....

Isn't the phone network based on openly published standards, with handsets made by manufacturers abroad? If there was an “enable law-enforcement bugging” mode, its existence would be known, and either it could be activated by anyone (organised crime, jealous ex-boyfriends, &c.) or they'd have to get companies in Europe, China, &c., to put the FBI's public key in their chipsets in advance. If this isn't just something the Americans have, they'd have to do the same for the law enforcement agencies in other countries as well, including hostile countries such as China, Iran and such. By which point, either any country can tap the phones in any other country and everyone in the intelligence community knows about it, the phones can tell where they are and only accept the legitimate keys of the local law jurisdiction in a reasonably failsafe way (a problem that, for example, DRM implementers haven't succeeded with), or it'd be possible to defeat this by buying a phone with a noncooperative foreign country's law enforcement key in it abroad and using it with a local SIM card. (“Let's see the FBI request the Venezuelan secret service's key for tapping this burner phone...”)
posted by acb at 10:39 AM on April 19, 2013


Is there where I get to slap our collective back over the lack of looting?

Wait until nightfall. If they don't get those packies open by the time folks need to make an evening beer run, there is going to be trouble.
posted by The 10th Regiment of Foot at 10:39 AM on April 19, 2013 [3 favorites]




Flunkie, they've been playing it over and over on WHDH.
posted by cooker girl at 10:39 AM on April 19, 2013


Toronto aunt of Boston bombing suspects says nephews innocent.

If that's the aunt I heard interviewed earlier on NPR (and I think it is as her statements at the beginning of the conversation feel like they match up) she said the FBI photographs convinced her. The disbelief was more of a "How? Why?" kind of thing.
posted by maryr at 10:39 AM on April 19, 2013


Oh, come the fuck on. What do I have to do, post a dot?

Your best bet is probably productively contributing to the conversation.
posted by Horace Rumpole at 10:40 AM on April 19, 2013 [2 favorites]


From the aunt: "However, she said she spoke to the oldest, 26-year-old Tamerlan Tsarnaev, two years ago when his daughter was born, and then again a year ago.

She said Tamerlan is married to a woman that she described as a Christian, and that he's been staying at home taking care of his daughter while his wife worked."
posted by youandiandaflame at 10:40 AM on April 19, 2013 [1 favorite]


Klang: updates are your friends.
Also, "Black Twitter" making jokes about the situation in the hashtag #TMZReports
posted by Potomac Avenue at 10:40 AM on April 19, 2013


Uncle Ruslan interview
posted by AwkwardPause at 10:40 AM on April 19, 2013


Oh, come the fuck on. What do I have to do, post a dot?

Ideally just not posting something referencing its own "I'm posting a comment because a mod deleted my other comment and just noting the timestamp to myself isn't an option for some reason" metaness in an already cluttered thread would do it.
posted by cortex at 10:40 AM on April 19, 2013 [3 favorites]


Is there a link to this interview somewhere?

Here
posted by axiom at 10:41 AM on April 19, 2013 [1 favorite]


The uncle is a true bad ass. All of the friends talking about suspect #2 scares the hell out of me.
posted by playertobenamedlater at 10:42 AM on April 19, 2013


Man, you know it's time to unplug when the signal-to-noise ratio is like eating five pounds of sawdust with each french fry.

Thank goodness for this place, but I still think I'm gonna go meditate for about a month.
posted by Mooski at 10:42 AM on April 19, 2013 [3 favorites]


I think those #TMZReports jokes are about TMZ.
posted by sudama at 10:42 AM on April 19, 2013


Umm, I think the relatives of the suspect are saying unwise things because media outlets are shoving microphones in the faces of anyone they can find and asking them what's happening when they most likely have little more clue than the rest of us.
posted by dry white toast at 10:44 AM on April 19, 2013 [11 favorites]


Folks, we've got a chat room for people who just need to have people to have running conversation with MeFites, ideally this thread is for talking about the topic of the thread more or less. I made a comment in a related MeTa thread about how people can be a little mindful about how we're dealing with these events on MetaFilter and feel free to go to that thread for more discussion on those topics.
posted by jessamyn at 10:44 AM on April 19, 2013


"Klang: updates are your friends."

Updates disappear when I hit back after posting. I'm doing other things, so I can't keep just endlessly hitting update here.
posted by klangklangston at 10:44 AM on April 19, 2013


Wouldn't they need to tap the phone/install an app onto it, or do all legal phones have a law-enforcement-controllable facility for directly accessing the microphone?

Apparently the latter as of the last court mention, and it's called a roaming intercept. A description from US v. John Tomero et al (2006) No. S2 06 Crim. 0008(LAK).

"The government applied for a "roving bug," that is, the interception
of Ardito's conversations at locations that were "not practical" to
specify, as authorized by 18 U.S.C. § 2518(11)(a). Judge Jones
granted the application, authorizing continued interception at the
four restaurants and the installation of a listening device in
Ardito's cellular telephone. The device functioned whether the phone
was powered on or off, intercepting conversations within its range
wherever it happened to be."

Without going into huge amounts of courtroom discussion, it was clear that physical access was not gained to the phone. Additionally, the location of a switched on phone can be determined via tower triangulation. If there's stuff in the baseband (modem) code rather than the consumer facing OS, you can't do much about that. That bit is almost never open source, and often has rights to call any part of memory etc. It has root on root, and makes cellular OSes hard to trust.
posted by jaduncan at 10:45 AM on April 19, 2013 [7 favorites]


...I am totally unaccustomed to seeing photos like this from news stories with a dateline of Watertown. Wow.
posted by maryr at 10:45 AM on April 19, 2013 [1 favorite]


presser now has aunt talking about the boys
posted by OHenryPacey at 10:45 AM on April 19, 2013




local news presser
posted by OHenryPacey at 10:47 AM on April 19, 2013


CNN's saying there will be a controlled detonation in Cambridge this afternoon.
posted by CrazyLemonade at 10:47 AM on April 19, 2013


The aunt is going to be turned into a meme...
posted by AwkwardPause at 10:48 AM on April 19, 2013 [1 favorite]


would we be having this discussion about wars in other places if they were Irish protestants from Belfast who moved here 10+ years ago?

I actually thought, 'Wouldn't it be weird if this was an incredibly belated revenge attack by loyalist paramilitaries?' when the news first broke. Ridiculous, obviously, but it's not like that lot are all forgive and forget about NorAid.
posted by jack_mo at 10:48 AM on April 19, 2013 [1 favorite]


Re: religious influence, Aunt saying a lot of disconnected stuff (youtube what?), but in there that her nephew had recently become more observant and had started praying 5 times daily.
posted by snuffleupagus at 10:49 AM on April 19, 2013


First hand account of being detained by the police last night in Watertown

A couple things caught my attention in that interview: First, "He told me it was very dangerous and that many cops were looking to 'shoot someone.'" Second, he was told to run back to his house (a couple hundred yards). He wasn't escorted. I hope the other law enforcement officers in the area had been told a civilian was making his way on foot to his house.
posted by audi alteram partem at 10:49 AM on April 19, 2013


anyone else starting to think that Tsarnaev is no longer in Watertown?
posted by beukeboom at 10:50 AM on April 19, 2013 [1 favorite]


Yes, that aunt was a hoot. She was certainly giving the press people a dressing down. When she was talking about the ridiculous things that pop up on YouTube, I think I heard her say "what shit is that"... if I'm right about that, that's an image macro waiting to happen.
posted by scrowdid at 10:50 AM on April 19, 2013 [5 favorites]


Has anyone figured out what they were doing at MIT when the security officer was killed? Did he catch them doing something, or did they go there to shoot him, or what?
posted by Weeping_angel at 10:50 AM on April 19, 2013 [1 favorite]


I felt weird when the reporters kept pressing the uncle for a patriotism check. Just weird. That's not what this country is supposed to be about.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 10:51 AM on April 19, 2013 [23 favorites]


I'm genuinely curious why the FBI didn't include this photo in their initial group. For the purpose if identification, it seems like the best one.
posted by davebush at 10:52 AM on April 19, 2013 [2 favorites]


From the Guardian liveblog:

An auto mechanic in Somerville, Massachusetts, told reporters that a "very nervous" Dzhokhar Tsarnaev came to his shop Tuesday, the day after the bombing, to pick up a car he'd dropped off for repairs. TPM reports:

Gilberto Junior, 44, said that the man, who has been identified as Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, 19, appeared to be “very nervous.”

“He was biting his fingernails, and was shaky,” Junior said.

Tsarnaev had dropped of the car, which Junior described as a white Mercedes wagon, at the auto shop about two weeks earlier. It had rear bumper damage, and Tsarnaev had said it was his girlfriend’s. On Tuesday, when Tsarnaev suddenly returned, Junior told him the car wasn’t ready.

“I don’t care, I don’t care, I don’t care, I need the car right now,” Tsarnaev said, according to Junior.

The mechanic said Tsarnaev took the car without its rear bumper on.

posted by mudpuppie at 10:52 AM on April 19, 2013 [1 favorite]


anyone else starting to think that Tsarnaev is no longer in Watertown?

I was about to reply "not if he has any sense in his fucking head" but I guess that's not making a commitment either way.
posted by griphus at 10:53 AM on April 19, 2013


Today we are all Paulie Walnuts -- 4/19 Nevar Forget

You guys do realize today's the anniversary of the OKC bombing, right?
posted by Dr. Zira at 10:53 AM on April 19, 2013 [1 favorite]




I felt weird when the reporters kept pressing the uncle for a patriotism check.

Glad I wasn't the only one.
posted by playertobenamedlater at 10:53 AM on April 19, 2013


The Onion: BREAKING: No News Breaking
posted by dry white toast at 10:53 AM on April 19, 2013 [7 favorites]


I felt weird when the reporters kept pressing the uncle for a patriotism check. Just weird. That's not what this country is supposed to be about.

Tebbit, in a [1990] interview with the Los Angeles Times, said: "A large proportion of Britain's Asian population fail to pass the cricket test. Which side do they cheer for? It's an interesting test. Are you still harking back to where you came from or where you are?"

Tebbit told Woodrow Wyatt in 1991 that he did not think certain immigrant communities would assimilate "because some of them insist on sticking to their own culture, like the Muslims in Bradford and so forth, and they are extremely dangerous".

The more racism changes...
posted by jaduncan at 10:53 AM on April 19, 2013 [3 favorites]


Representatives of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) today joined other leaders from the national and Washington-area Muslim community at a news conference in Washington, D.C., to state that Americans will remain united in face of developments in the Boston Marathon bombings that include the naming of suspects who are reportedly Muslim.
posted by mykescipark at 10:54 AM on April 19, 2013


That fascinating thing about this thread, and the story, is that despite having followed it religiously since this morning, I still don't know a lot more information. It boils down to "We know who the bomber is and we're taking extraordinary steps to hunt and capture him" Everything is minor details at this point.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 10:54 AM on April 19, 2013 [4 favorites]


Has anyone figured out what they were doing at MIT when the security officer was killed? Did he catch them doing something, or did they go there to shoot him, or what?

BBC reported earlier the possibility that the officer somehow got in the way of them planting a bomb there, which is why the current massive shut down is based on--potential bombs set in other prominent places yesterday. Again, mostly speculation there.
posted by Potomac Avenue at 10:54 AM on April 19, 2013


anyone else starting to think that Tsarnaev is no longer in Watertown?

Given the shutdown of transportation, the logical place for him to be right now would be an empty basement or garage somewhere, no?
posted by dry white toast at 10:55 AM on April 19, 2013


NPR now reports that Tamerlan Tsarnaev was never close to making the USA boxing team.

Because thank god, only non-American immigrants would blow things up, there's no such thing as a domestic terrorist.
posted by dubusadus at 10:57 AM on April 19, 2013


Plant Hoax News (Conspiracy site) - Islamic terror from Caucasus next phase of plan to undermine our liberty:

"Pakistan’s ISI (Inter-Services Intelligence) played a key role in organizing and training the Chechen rebel army. The ISI also played an instrumental role in supporting the Afghan Mujahideen, a Muslim paramilitary force that would eventually mature under the guiding hand of the CIA et al into the Taliban and al-Qaeda.

The British MI6 asset Abu Qatada raised money for the Chechnya jihad and the notorious Finsbury Park mosque imam Abu Hamza al-Masri – an informer for two British security services in London – raised funds for both the jihad in Chechnya and bin Laden’s Darunta camp in Afghanistan."

&c. &c.
posted by marienbad at 10:57 AM on April 19, 2013


The reports are a little confusing -- is there reason to believe he didn't blow town the first chance he got?
posted by griphus at 10:57 AM on April 19, 2013


The MIT CP was shot in his squad car though. I'm not sure how that happened. (I feel like I may have posted this in the other thread)
posted by maryr at 10:58 AM on April 19, 2013


>Given the shutdown of transportation, the logical place for him to be right now would be an empty basement or garage somewhere, no?

If he's still alive.
posted by mosk at 10:58 AM on April 19, 2013


Tamerlan had a daughter? This according to the aunt on CNN.
posted by Rock Steady at 10:58 AM on April 19, 2013


15 Polices officers injured last nite.

No offense but these guys are really crappy at actually killing people.
posted by Potomac Avenue at 10:58 AM on April 19, 2013


imma just gonna leave a
.
for the the 19 year old. For whatever led him to do evil things. What a waste of his life. He's a kid.
posted by angrycat at 10:58 AM on April 19, 2013 [10 favorites]


I take that back, I think he was found in his car. They could have moved him. I remember seeing a pic with blood on ground at Stata Ctr.
posted by maryr at 10:58 AM on April 19, 2013


Has anyone figured out what they were doing at MIT when the security officer was killed?

The one picture I saw from MIT was taken from an upper floor of the Koch Building (76) of a pedestrian area between Koch and the Stata Center (32), where the shooting appeared to have occurred. The area would have been visible from the street (intersection of Vassar & Main Sts.), and just down Main St (toward Boston), from the 7-11. According to the Globe's map, the carjacking took place a few more blocks down and over, on 3rd St. in East Cambridge. I live by their Norfolk St. residence; this is approximately the walking path I'd take to go from home to cross the Longfellow Bridge and go into Boston---to get to Beacon Hill and the Common, for example.
posted by Mapes at 10:59 AM on April 19, 2013


There was a huge amount of time between the shootout (1am) and the lockdown (not sure but maybe 4-6am) and when people woke up (even later). Seems reasonable to me that he could have escaped Watertown between 1 and 4 am.
posted by bobobox at 10:59 AM on April 19, 2013


Really? How interesting that there's not a single Ontario lawyer with your last name.

Slavic last names (which are usually gendered in the native language) are regularly butchered when they transcribe them to English. Her last name could be any of the myriad spellings of "Tsarniy," "Tsarnayev," "Tsarnayeva," and so on.
posted by griphus at 10:59 AM on April 19, 2013 [12 favorites]


There's 1.5 pro-Obama tweets on the twitter account so Free Republic is probably in a frenzy right now.
posted by drezdn at 11:00 AM on April 19, 2013


Dasein: "What a moron. Getting into a shooutout with the police and throwing more bombs at them not enough to convince her?

I particularly love this part: “I am a lawyer and there are four
"

Apparently she's the love child of Baghdad Bob and Orly Taitz.
posted by tonycpsu at 11:00 AM on April 19, 2013 [1 favorite]


it seems weird that so much is made of what his uncle said - i know, absence of other information - but he says he hasn't seen them in 5 years? so when the youngest was 14? i have some family i haven't seen in 5, 10, 15 years and they would know nothing about me - this goes double for family that i live close to but don't visit.
posted by nadawi at 11:01 AM on April 19, 2013 [4 favorites]


here was a huge amount of time between the shootout (1am) and the lockdown

The cops had been swarming the area pretty thoroughly from the shootout on. It doesn't mean he couldn't have escaped, but it would have been difficult.
posted by drezdn at 11:01 AM on April 19, 2013




drezdn: "There's 1.5 pro-Obama tweets on the twitter accountBarack Obama is still President, so Free Republic is probably in a frenzy right now."

(ftfy)
posted by tonycpsu at 11:01 AM on April 19, 2013 [2 favorites]


There's enough here to keep Alex Jones hopping for months.

You mean they found a huge stash of cocaine in Boston!?
posted by FJT at 11:02 AM on April 19, 2013 [5 favorites]


griphus, that's possible, but if that's the case, then the Toronto Star screwed up, because that's how they're spelling it.

I would not be remotely surprised that they screwed up Slavic morphology and arbitrary transliteration spelling rules in the middle of a crisis.
posted by griphus at 11:02 AM on April 19, 2013 [2 favorites]


anyone else starting to think that Tsarnaev is no longer in Watertown?

Why the hell where they still in Boston anyways.

This whole thing seems really unplanned. One has a girlfriend, one went to pick up a car the day after the explosion. What they didn't think of CCTV cameras, they didn't leave town?

Such an amateur job, or they planned to continue with more attacks...
posted by Burgatron at 11:02 AM on April 19, 2013 [1 favorite]


As someone stuck in Waltham, I appreciate this thread. Thanks.
posted by superior julie at 11:03 AM on April 19, 2013 [1 favorite]


Boy, the Toronto media must have a full-on erection about the fact that a family member lives in the Greater Toronto Area.

The media are like heroin addicts sometimes.
posted by dry white toast at 11:03 AM on April 19, 2013 [4 favorites]


I wish I could subscribe to a service that would send me an alert when there's a new development.
posted by Area Man at 11:03 AM on April 19, 2013 [4 favorites]


"imma just gonna leave a
.
for the the 19 year old."


For a murderer? a cold-blooded murderer who sanely and with malice aforethought, planted bombs to maim and kill? seriously?
posted by marienbad at 11:04 AM on April 19, 2013 [3 favorites]


If there's stuff in the baseband (modem) code rather than the consumer facing OS, you can't do much about that. That bit is almost never open source, and often has rights to call any part of memory etc. It has root on root, and makes cellular OSes hard to trust.

Does the baseband have a direct connection to the microphone on all street-legal phones?

Come to think of it, it could; I once had an old iPhone 3G on which the microphone worked in the phone app but not in any other app. Which suggests that the app-hosting part of it accessing the microphone is very much auxilliary to the core functionality.
posted by acb at 11:04 AM on April 19, 2013


Updated CT vehicle description:

1999 Green Honda Civic

REGISTRATION: 116 GC7 Massachusetts
posted by neroli at 11:04 AM on April 19, 2013


Such an amateur job, or they planned to continue with more attacks...

The fact that they seem to have been dropping bombs as they went, rather than just getting the hell out of Dodge suggests they're just trying to cause chaos until they're gunned down.

In which case...
posted by dry white toast at 11:05 AM on April 19, 2013


For a murderer? a cold-blooded murderer who sanely and with malice aforethought, planted bombs to maim and kill? seriously?

Alleged murderer.
posted by The 10th Regiment of Foot at 11:05 AM on April 19, 2013 [1 favorite]


marienbad: ""imma just gonna leave a
.
for the the 19 year old."


For a murderer? a cold-blooded murderer who sanely and with malice aforethought, planted bombs to maim and kill? seriously?
"

Yeah? A life's a life...
posted by Strass at 11:05 AM on April 19, 2013 [7 favorites]


Nate Bell has apologized for the timing of his tweet.

Y'know, because the timing is why you were upset.
posted by nickmark at 11:06 AM on April 19, 2013 [5 favorites]


Wait, so the car's been spotted in Connecticut?
posted by mudpuppie at 11:06 AM on April 19, 2013


The fact that they seem to have been dropping bombs as they went, rather than just getting the hell out of Dodge suggests they're just trying to cause chaos until they were gunned down.

Yeah, if they had any serious interest in not getting caught they wouldn't have been in Boston last night.
posted by Bulgaroktonos at 11:06 AM on April 19, 2013


There is enough WTF to this whole thing to make several very bad Bruckheimer movies. Which will inevitably be one of the outcomes.
posted by mosk at 11:06 AM on April 19, 2013 [2 favorites]




For a murderer? a cold-blooded murderer who sanely and with malice aforethought, planted bombs to maim and kill? seriously?

Yes. It was life that went horribly wrong somewhere and all the potential good from that life and person was lost. By all accounts was great in a lot of ways, so it will be interesting to see what turned him down this particular path.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 11:07 AM on April 19, 2013 [15 favorites]


However, as noted above, going to Russia =/= "military training"

Well, depends on where.

In the U.S. I understand you get a pass on adv. infantry training if you’re from Detroit.
posted by Smedleyman at 11:07 AM on April 19, 2013 [1 favorite]


My deskmate is supposed to be taking a bus this evening to Boston. He is wondering if this trip is going to be feasible. I am guessing not.
posted by computech_apolloniajames at 11:07 AM on April 19, 2013


Wait, so the car's been spotted in Connecticut?

The CT state police are assisting on this case so that the Mass Comm Police etc. can focus on the search.
posted by The 10th Regiment of Foot at 11:08 AM on April 19, 2013 [1 favorite]


"If this were Grand Theft Auto, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev would definitely have 6 stars right now."

I confess I had that thought myself while listening to the radio this morning. Followed by a thought about how very "Natural Born Killers" it feels to be following this whole thing through the media and internet.
posted by nickmark at 11:08 AM on April 19, 2013 [4 favorites]


Whups.
posted by sibboleth at 11:08 AM on April 19, 2013


There are also no lawyers in Ontario with her first name.

Jeeze, calm down. This lady hasn't done anything wrong. She's probably a lawyer who doesn't practice any more/emigrated and found too many barriers to entry to practice in ON (trust me, this is incredibly common).
posted by SassHat at 11:08 AM on April 19, 2013 [23 favorites]




There are also no lawyers in Ontario with her first name.

So? Maybe she went to law school and sat for the Bar, then opted not to practice. It's not unheard of. Why all the worry about her, anyway?
posted by MissySedai at 11:08 AM on April 19, 2013 [1 favorite]


Wait, so the car's been spotted in Connecticut?

The car that was reported as possibly the suspect's is at the scene of the location they are preparing to secure. That's on the local news report videostream atm.
posted by snuffleupagus at 11:09 AM on April 19, 2013



For a murderer? a cold-blooded murderer who sanely and with malice aforethought, planted bombs to maim and kill? seriously?"


People handle situations differently. I for one don't share the bloodthirsty, string em up, "evildoer" reactions people are having. I don't think compassion can be wasted.
posted by sweetkid at 11:09 AM on April 19, 2013 [14 favorites]


The CBC needs to get the aunt and Don Cherry together for a new variety show.
posted by playertobenamedlater at 11:09 AM on April 19, 2013 [3 favorites]


For a murderer? a cold-blooded murderer who sanely and with malice aforethought, planted bombs to maim and kill? seriously?

A healthy dose of empathy by all parties can't be the worst thing. I mean, look at Nate "Fucking Moron" Bell
posted by SassHat at 11:09 AM on April 19, 2013 [6 favorites]


My deskmate is supposed to be taking a bus this evening to Boston. He is wondering if this trip is going to be feasible. I am guessing not.

Check with the company. Because No.
posted by Potomac Avenue at 11:09 AM on April 19, 2013 [1 favorite]


He's a murderer, and I hope that he lives to face a trial with full due process. But teenagers are often pitiful creatures, even if they aren't influenced by whatever Bad Shit he was influenced by. He created horrific violence, and I have cried quite a bit over it, but at the same time, I believe that God loves all of us, the most wretched even. He falls in that category, I think.

I don't want to diminish the heartache that Boston feels with the above one whit.
posted by angrycat at 11:10 AM on April 19, 2013 [10 favorites]


Boston Police Dept. ‏@Boston_Police 1m
#WANTED: Police seeking MA Plate: 116-GC7, ’99 Honda Sedan, Color - Green. Possible suspect car. Do not approach. pic.twitter.com/IVCPtmVwRT
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 11:10 AM on April 19, 2013


Dasein, the internet truth squad is over there
posted by Rumple at 11:10 AM on April 19, 2013


So? Maybe she went to law school and sat for the Bar, then opted not to practice. It's not unheard of. Why all the worry about her, anyway?

When your only tool is Google, everything looks like a search term.
posted by Celsius1414 at 11:10 AM on April 19, 2013 [26 favorites]


CBS just said the green Honda report has been rescinded.
posted by Brainy at 11:10 AM on April 19, 2013


is there reason to believe he didn't blow town the first chance he got?

That's assuming that he'd have somewhere better to hide. Or to make a last stand/suicide mission. Or to attempt to get out of the country. Just running and hoping to blend in somewhere else doesn't sound like much of a plan.
posted by acb at 11:10 AM on April 19, 2013


I wish I could subscribe to a service that would send me an alert when there's a new development.

RSS feed for "Updates on Aftermath of Boston Marathon Explosions" at NYT
posted by seemoreglass at 11:11 AM on April 19, 2013


Brainy, that was tweeted from BPD a minute ago. I don't think it has been rescinded.
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 11:12 AM on April 19, 2013


Suspects' father (via ABC News, as homelystar linked to): "If they kill my second child, I will know that it is an inside job, a hit job. The police are to blame," the father told ABC News. "Someone, some organization is out to get them."

What in the actual hell? He indeed claims to have known about the bombing and said they spoke of it before it happened this week. Crazy, crazy. Apparently it runs in the family.
Where did you read that they spoke of it before it happened? And where did you (at least seemingly) get the idea that he claims to have known that his sons were the perpetrators of the bombing? I might have missed something, but neither of these things seems to me to be present in the article that you linked to.

The closest seems to be this:
The father said he spoke to his sons by phone earlier this week. "We talked about the bombing. I was worried about them," Anzor Tsarnaev said.
"Earlier this week" does not mean "before the bombing" (in fact it probably means the opposite), and "We talked about the bombing. I was worried about them" does not mean "We talked about the fact that they were the bombers."

Plus, the fact that the article goes on to say that he says his sons are innocent seems directly at odds with the idea that he knew they were the perpetrators, and with the idea that he knew about the bombing before it happened.
posted by Flunkie at 11:12 AM on April 19, 2013 [1 favorite]


CBS just said the green Honda report has been rescinded.
Yes, this.
posted by snuffleupagus at 11:12 AM on April 19, 2013


I'll be really interested to hear what the UMASS part of the investigation yields.
posted by FelliniBlank at 11:12 AM on April 19, 2013




For a murderer? a cold-blooded murderer who sanely and with malice aforethought, planted bombs to maim and kill? seriously?

We don't know how involved the 19 year old was. We don't really know much of anything right now. I mean, he could be a cold-blooded murderer, or he could be a kid who made some dumb choices and got dragged by his brother into a bad situation. We don't know and it seems premature to condem him already.

Anyway, I'm hoping and praying they catch him alive, both for his sake and so they can talk to him and find out what happened.

When I look at that picture of him, all I see is a kid. I hope they don't kill him.

.
posted by Weeping_angel at 11:13 AM on April 19, 2013 [11 favorites]


Wait until nightfall. If they don't get those packies open by the time folks need to make an evening beer run, there is going to be trouble.

This is true!
posted by ericb at 11:13 AM on April 19, 2013


Flunkie, that comment you are responding to is from two hours ago and has been discussed to death.
posted by smackfu at 11:13 AM on April 19, 2013


I just want to know why.
posted by St. Alia of the Bunnies at 11:14 AM on April 19, 2013 [6 favorites]


Yes, this.

CBS seems to be wrong on that then
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 11:14 AM on April 19, 2013


imma just gonna leave a
.
for the the 19 year old.


Besides the whole he's-a-fuckin-terrorist angle, there's also the (as far as we know) he's-not-dead thing.
posted by 0 at 11:14 AM on April 19, 2013 [1 favorite]


Y'all have neatly summed up why I can't play any of the GTA games.
posted by restless_nomad at 11:14 AM on April 19, 2013 [4 favorites]


"What century are we living in? she says. "We need evidence. Otherwise you can go shoot anyone like a chicken on the street. Not for me. We need evidence."

Do they shoot chickens? I'd have thought they would have made too small and fast-moving targets.
posted by acb at 11:15 AM on April 19, 2013


Mod note: Seriously, maybe enough with the GTA jokes.
posted by cortex (staff) at 11:15 AM on April 19, 2013 [7 favorites]


METAFILTER: that comment you are responding to is from two hours ago and has been discussed to death.
posted by philip-random at 11:15 AM on April 19, 2013 [22 favorites]


I just want to know why.

I feel like if the brother had been able to be taken alive we would know more about why, unfortunately.
posted by sweetkid at 11:15 AM on April 19, 2013


I just want to know why.

Because sometimes, people just SUCK.
posted by MissySedai at 11:16 AM on April 19, 2013


NYC Police looking for the Honda Civic now. Definitely not telling my fiance the suspect is headed right at us.
posted by Potomac Avenue at 11:16 AM on April 19, 2013


CBS seems to be wrong on that then

Yeah, now they're going the other way. Seems inconsistent with other stuff, but still should be credited for now. No harm if it turns out to have already been secured.
posted by snuffleupagus at 11:17 AM on April 19, 2013


..or he could be a kid who made some dumb choices and got dragged by his brother into a bad situation

I'm guessing that's what happened. But I also thought the bombing was done by right wing nut jobs, so what the hell do I know?
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 11:17 AM on April 19, 2013 [5 favorites]


I find I have nothing to say at this point but will reserve the right to comment when all the facts are in, details provide, and due consideration given to what was done, how it was done, by whom it was done, and what seemingly was the reason it was done and how the officials resolved the situation fully.
posted by Postroad at 11:17 AM on April 19, 2013 [1 favorite]


I wonder if those are cars that have been stolen since the two man shootout last night - ie where is he? The earlier car was abandoned in Cambridge. Good thing they closed the T.
posted by shothotbot at 11:18 AM on April 19, 2013


I really hope he doesn't kill himself.
posted by Weeping_angel at 11:18 AM on April 19, 2013


Yeah, the best thing for justice is always a fair trial.
posted by klangklangston at 11:20 AM on April 19, 2013 [3 favorites]


Re: the 'why didn't they flee Monday night?' question: Until their pictures were released yesterday, they may have believed they wouldn't be caught if they played it cool. Whereas it would look suspicious if two brothers from the area suddenly left town shortly after a bombing.
posted by Eyebeams at 11:20 AM on April 19, 2013 [2 favorites]


One thing I have learned from listening to a scanner while working is that it really must be embarassing to be called out by full name for having an open mike.
posted by chemoboy at 11:21 AM on April 19, 2013 [4 favorites]


UMASS Dartmouth professor tutored bomb suspect in Chechen history.

Liberal indoctrination at Ivy League* colleges! Take it away, Drudge, Daily Caller, et. al.!

(Yes, I know it's not that Dartmouth, but why let the facts get in the way of some good pitchforkin'?
posted by tonycpsu at 11:21 AM on April 19, 2013 [2 favorites]


NYC Police looking for the Honda Civic now.

There are PD's from all over the NE United States working the Boston area right now. The logistical juggling act on the scanner is spectacular. "this is unit 123 I need a k-9 over on X street, over." "OK 123 we've got NYPD K-9 unit 4 on route, over..." No delay between routing at all!
posted by The 10th Regiment of Foot at 11:21 AM on April 19, 2013 [2 favorites]


Yeah, I would prefer he listens to his uncle. I was really impressed by his interview.
posted by Golden Eternity at 11:22 AM on April 19, 2013 [1 favorite]


When someone does something horrible, especially someone so young, I am prone to feel sorrow that they did something so irrevocable, so damaging. This in no way means that I don't feel they should face the consequences of their actions, or that I feel any less sorrow for those they harmed.

There was, for a time, a kid who didn't do this. Who didn't destroy lives, including his own. I am not sorry to see a . for that kid, while not losing sight of the evil he did.
posted by EvaDestruction at 11:24 AM on April 19, 2013 [49 favorites]


Re: the 'why didn't they flee Monday night?' question: Until their pictures were released yesterday, they may have believed they wouldn't be caught if they played it cool. Whereas it would look suspicious if two brothers from the area suddenly left town shortly after a bombing.

This is the whole problem with "let's take a look at the root causes of terrorism" argument, because it assumes the perpetrators of mayhem like this are intelligent enough to construct a coherent worldview, and then act on it.

These guys learned how to make a bomb from a pressure cooker. That's pretty nifty, but it's something any 15 year old could learn how to do.

It could be that these guys were not particularly bright.
posted by KokuRyu at 11:24 AM on April 19, 2013


I thought I heard the Civic was parked behind the apartment building.?
posted by batou_ at 11:24 AM on April 19, 2013


Mod note: Comments removed, cut it out or go do something else.
posted by cortex (staff) at 11:24 AM on April 19, 2013


flunkie: Yeah, I copped to having misread that (wasn't that even in the old thread?) earlier.

Or what philip-random said.
posted by youandiandaflame at 11:24 AM on April 19, 2013


I'm in Back Bay, right where the Marathon bombings happened, but far from the active manhunt.

(Haven't had time to catch up on the entirety of this thread, responding to some comments toward the beginning.)

I'm in no mood whatsoever to debate the implications of what's going on for Democracy in general. Our city was bombed. An officer was killed by men with explosives who just wanted to do as much damage as possible. An entire Metro area is locked down and pretty freaked out by the very, very real possibility that this guy wants to do damage for the sake of doing damage. And in the midst of all this, the police are doing what they can to bring him in alive.

Let's talk about Democracy when he's caught alive and entitled to due process to a fair trial. Right now, the Boston lockdown is 100% voluntary. If you leave your home, you will not be arrested. Police are requesting to search homes and people are consenting because it's a FUCKING NIGHTMARE. Maybe you wouldn't let them in, but try not to armchair quarterback a terrified city's response to crisis.
posted by sonika at 11:24 AM on April 19, 2013 [32 favorites]


We'll never catch them Tsarnaev boys, they crossed the county line..
posted by Damienmce at 11:24 AM on April 19, 2013 [3 favorites]


Honda just has to be loving all this free advertising.
posted by FelliniBlank at 11:25 AM on April 19, 2013 [2 favorites]


Although HOURS old now, I heard a radio interview on NPR with a Boston-area garage owner who had once employed the suspects' father.

Man, they are just filling time. I have never heard a more useless interview in my life.
posted by GuyZero at 11:25 AM on April 19, 2013 [2 favorites]


From the Guardian liveblog:
In another painful case of misplaced suspicions, the family of a young man reported missing last month have had to take down a Facebook account set up to help find him after a wave of Internet users falsely – incorrectly – connected the missing man to the photos of Boston bombing suspects released Thursday.
ugh I hate people
posted by desjardins at 11:25 AM on April 19, 2013 [2 favorites]


Isn't why rather obvious? I'm sure Islam's violent streak influenced the details, but crazy Imams preaching over the internet not so much. Instead, we've two kids who grew up here and turned towards violence in much same manor as the Columbine shooters. As they graduated first, they selected their target from outside their school world, otherwise this looks like Columbine.
posted by jeffburdges at 11:25 AM on April 19, 2013 [2 favorites]


Re: the 'why didn't they flee Monday night?' question: Until their pictures were released yesterday, they may have believed they wouldn't be caught if they played it cool. Whereas it would look suspicious if two brothers from the area suddenly left town shortly after a bombing.

Doesn't really explain why they decided to rob a 7-11 a few blocks away from where they lived after their photos were out but before they were identified. My guess is that they were just idiots who didn't think things through very well.
posted by burnmp3s at 11:26 AM on April 19, 2013 [2 favorites]


Thank god for Metafilter, because every single time I've heard someone talk about this out loud in public today (except for, thankfully, the actual news people I work with where the mantra from the top down is Ken White's headline "Richard Jewell Cannot Accept Our Apology") they've been taking some cable news "analyst" speculation as fact and it's driving me up the damn wall. I am locking myself in my office with headphones on until 5.
posted by jason_steakums at 11:26 AM on April 19, 2013 [4 favorites]


You evidently have been only selectively paying attention to the information we have about this, then.

No, I've been paying attention to all of the information I can find. I'm saying that my knee-jerk reaction when I see his picture is that he's a kid. Also, everyone who actually knew him seems to be saying that he was a good kid, speaks several languages, plays the piano, etc. I'm having a hard time reconciling that with the evidence and actions they've taken recently.
posted by Weeping_angel at 11:26 AM on April 19, 2013 [2 favorites]


I also really hope he doesn't kill himself.

Yep. As was said upthread by RobotVoodooPower, "You know, it seems the most damaging thing the perp could do at this point is to tie a brick to his feet, jump into the Charles River and never be seen again." Fortunately, I don't think Dzhokar is old (wise) enough to realize that this would be the masterstroke.
posted by wensink at 11:28 AM on April 19, 2013


I've looked again at three pictures from this week's Boston tragedies.

1. The 8-year-old who was killed in the blast.
2. The 19-year-old suspected bomber.
3. The 26-year-old police officer killed last night.

I feel different kinds of sorrow about each of those boys. 1 and 3 are easy to figure out.

2 is tougher, and I share the anger toward him as well. I also can't help feeling society/humanity has failed him too.

But most of all I can't get over how young they all look.
posted by Celsius1414 at 11:28 AM on April 19, 2013 [10 favorites]


My guess is that they were just idiots who didn't think things through very well.

This could be said of anyone that commits crimes like this.
posted by drezdn at 11:28 AM on April 19, 2013


> For a murderer? a cold-blooded murderer who sanely and with malice aforethought, planted bombs
> to maim and kill? seriously?

To paraphrase, "Father forgive them, because they are so helplessly impossibly clueless about what they do."
posted by jfuller at 11:29 AM on April 19, 2013 [1 favorite]


UMASS Dartmouth professor tutored bomb suspect in Chechen history.

my entirely subjective takeaway from this is that these guys are/were more Unabomber types than affiliated with any kind of big deal organized (so-called) terrorist organization. By which I mean, they seem to not be complete idiots, they have done some research, there may even turn out to be some substance to their grievances ...

But in the end, their actions come from the worst kind of alienated male dissonance. Young men who long ago lost their sense of humility, and thus, easily humiliated. Which in my experience is one of the prime triggers for violence.
posted by philip-random at 11:29 AM on April 19, 2013 [16 favorites]


The cover of next week's New Yorker will be emotional for a lot of people.
posted by BobbyVan at 11:29 AM on April 19, 2013 [2 favorites]


His twitter account has something for everyone... Racism, homophobia, Obama support.
posted by drezdn at 11:29 AM on April 19, 2013 [2 favorites]


Isn't why rather obvious? I'm sure Islam's violent streak influenced the details, but not necessarily crazy Imams preaching over the internet. Instead, we've two kids who grew up here and turned towards violence in much same manor as the Columbine shooters. As they graduated first, they selected their target from outside their school world, otherwise this looks like Columbine.

You could be right, but I don't feel like we know enough for anything to be obvious yet. I don't find the crazy internet preacher thing so implausible, when we know its been a factor for others. None of us knew anything about these guys yesterday, but now we know what motivated them to commit a horrible crime?
posted by Area Man at 11:31 AM on April 19, 2013 [3 favorites]


Doesn't really explain why they decided to rob a 7-11 a few blocks away from where they lived after their photos were out but before they were identified. My guess is that they were just idiots who didn't think things through very well.

I initially had the same thought, but my guess is they saw themselves in the video, freaked out, figured they needed some cash to skip town and that's what they came up with. Still not very well-planned, but it makes some sense.
posted by breakin' the law at 11:31 AM on April 19, 2013 [3 favorites]




"This could be said of anyone that commits crimes like this."

The general gist of any true crime police book, Homicide by David Simon especially, is that cops catch criminals mainly because criminals are dumb. Like, #1 reason by a length.
posted by klangklangston at 11:31 AM on April 19, 2013 [4 favorites]


Also, 9-11 truther.
posted by drezdn at 11:32 AM on April 19, 2013


my entirely subjective takeaway from this is that these guys are/were more Unabomber types than affiliated with any kind of big deal organized (so-called) terrorist organization.

The low quality explosive made is a giveaway for that. Al Qaeda and the Chechens have competent chemists and everything (even setting aside the fact people can just look in various US Army manuals).
posted by jaduncan at 11:32 AM on April 19, 2013 [1 favorite]



Doesn't really explain why they decided to rob a 7-11 a few blocks away from where they lived after their photos were out but before they were identified. My guess is that they were just idiots who didn't think things through very well.


I think the original plan was to chill out, and play it cool. Once they realized the gig was up, they tried to split town - but they needed cash and road beers first.

More than anything, this doesn't seem to have been planned that well - though they've done an impressive job of avoiding capture so far.
posted by Pogo_Fuzzybutt at 11:32 AM on April 19, 2013 [2 favorites]


Just noticed Street closed in my neck of the woods in Colorado just dgot this report: Federal Boulevard is closed between 80th and 82nd streets. Police in Westminster are investigating a possible explosive device at an apartment building and have put two schools on lockout as a precaution.
posted by lordaych at 11:33 AM on April 19, 2013


I've been thinking about H. Murakami's essay about how people reacted to his sometimes fantastical elements in his fiction differently after 9/11. To paraphrase from memory, M. wrote that people seemed to accept some of the more fantastical elements as real after the completely surreal thing of planes crashing into the towers and bringing them down happened.

This seems to be another incident that pushes the envelope of people's expectations of The Real: An entire city on lockdown, a nation on the hunt for a kid who for God knows why (allegedly) carried out an act whose brutality is just so WTF, in terms of Western expectations.
posted by angrycat at 11:34 AM on April 19, 2013 [10 favorites]


lordaych: my office buliding on long island had some kind of threat this morning, we were all evacuated for a couple hours until the police could search the building.

It's like everyone is in full freak-out mode.
posted by inertia at 11:35 AM on April 19, 2013


You evidently have been only selectively paying attention to the information we have about this, then.

Okay, let's rock and roll:

We've got a kid who was probably born, but at least spent more than half of his life living in exile because his country was in a state of war (or for whatever reason ethnic Chechens decided to move. See Ivan Fyodorovich's fantastic comment above.) Said exile was in Kyrgyzstan, which, if its anything like basically every other country, is not exactly a land of opportunity, much less so for someone who is not ethnically Kyrgyz.

So he moved to America with his older brother, most likely as a refugee, and from what we can tell, he neither assimilated into or adopted the culture to any major extent and found himself alienated. Whether one led to the other, and which to which, is in the air. There's not a lot of Chechens, period. There's certainly not a lot of Chechens in America. There's Russians and Ukranians and so on, with whom he would share a language, but at the end of the day he isn't one of them.

Maybe he flirted with radical Islam. Maybe his brother got him into this. Maybe, maybe, maybe. But he's a kid who has had a hard life and made some massively stupid and horribly destructive choices. But I can't see how you can look at what we know of him and think "yep, this kid's just bad."
posted by griphus at 11:35 AM on April 19, 2013 [39 favorites]


(If I got any of the facts wrong up there, please feel free to correct me.)
posted by griphus at 11:35 AM on April 19, 2013


From a friend's FB post:

Things we'll do to keep people safe: Lock down an entire city for hours.

Things we won't do: A 5 min background check before you buy a gun.


Your friend has obviously never tried to buy a gun in MA.
posted by WhitenoisE at 11:35 AM on April 19, 2013 [7 favorites]


It has turned into a perfect spring day for a manhunt in Boston..partly sunny, 70 degrees, light south winds.

This is by far the nicest day this spring and I can't bring my son to the playground and FUCK THIS GUY doesn't begin to cover it.
posted by sonika at 11:36 AM on April 19, 2013 [9 favorites]


If I was trying to plot a modestly reasonable sequence of events, I'd assume these guys were preparing to get out of the city and move on to their next target, were making a last supply run at 7-11 (brilliant I know), got recognized by clerk and panicked, that escalated to a robbery, and things continued escalating from there.
posted by hoople at 11:36 AM on April 19, 2013


One thing I have learned from listening to a scanner while working is that it really must be embarassing to be called out by full name for having an open mike.

It is the worst thing. The worst thing. One time our chief dropped his radio between the seat of his truck and the gearshift and the damn thing was keyed on for an hour and a half. He checked his phone, finally, to find he had 147 missed calls and texts.

The good news is, almost everyone knows that when that happens, you switch to the next available channel, so it's not terribly damaging if it happens. Just, like, way embarrassing. EMS like to tease and they have crazy long memories. I pity the guy who does it during something like this.
posted by WidgetAlley at 11:37 AM on April 19, 2013 [4 favorites]


This seems to be another incident that pushes the envelope of people's expectations of The Real

angrycat, I was just thinking about that a little while ago, how this is all starting to remind me of some story out of that blog posted a while back that's written by a guy who just plays real-life simulation games. Unfortunately, the bizarre is becoming the everyday.
posted by limeonaire at 11:37 AM on April 19, 2013


Yeah I'm running out of ways of entertaining our kid. My in-laws offered us shelter in NH if we want it, but I'm sort of uncomfortable driving out of Watertown right now, even if the lockdown is voluntary.
posted by Elementary Penguin at 11:37 AM on April 19, 2013


Mass Police have recalled the BOLO (be on lookout I guess?) for the Green Civic. They have that car already.
posted by Potomac Avenue at 11:38 AM on April 19, 2013 [1 favorite]


he neither assimilated into or adopted the culture to any major extent and found himself alienated.

This may very well be true, but I'd say there's also notable evidence to the contrary.
posted by FelliniBlank at 11:38 AM on April 19, 2013 [1 favorite]


But I can't see how you can look at what we know of him and think "yep, this kid's just bad."

Nor do I. But I can't see how you can look at what we know of him and think, "yep, that's just a kid."
posted by OmieWise at 11:38 AM on April 19, 2013 [2 favorites]


When this is over, Boston should get like a week of vacation or something. Like a snow day, but in reverse.
posted by ambrosia at 11:39 AM on April 19, 2013 [9 favorites]


It is weird, if these guys had a "go-bag" with money and maybe even a pair of nice suit, ties, shoes, etc., they could probably have made it to Canada and beyond by now.

Hiding in plain-sight seems dumb, especially for people this young who had to know social media and camera phones means people would be able to figure it out fairly quickly.
posted by rosswald at 11:40 AM on April 19, 2013 [4 favorites]


When this is over, Boston should get like a week of vacation or something. Like a snow day, but in reverse.

The people who get paid by the hour may not be too keen about that.
posted by acb at 11:40 AM on April 19, 2013 [1 favorite]


Heard an interview with the aunt of these brothers on NPR. She said that they knew nothing of Chechnya, that their parents moved to Kyrgyzstan as the war heated up in the 90's. That the older brother married a Christian woman and was the father to daughter. That he only started practicing his faith around 2007, and praying 5 times a day. Made him seem fairly normal.
posted by zerobyproxy at 11:41 AM on April 19, 2013 [1 favorite]


Angrycat: can you link to/do you know the name of the Murakami essay?
posted by tapir-whorf at 11:41 AM on April 19, 2013


Nate Bell:
I would like to apologize to the people of Boston & Massachusetts for the poor timing of my tweet earlier this morning. As a staunch and unwavering supporter of the individual right to self defense, I expressed my point of view without thinking of its effect on those still in time of crisis. In hindsight, given the ongoing tragedy that is still unfolding, I regret the poor choice of timing. Please know that my thoughts and prayers were with the people of Boston overnight and will continue as they recover from this tragedy.
Nate Bell completes the asshole trifecta:

1) make an obviously stupid tweet;
2) get told it's offensive;
3) up the asshole rating with non-apology.
posted by jaduncan at 11:41 AM on April 19, 2013 [14 favorites]


I hope that at least the hourly workers who were at work when the shelter in place order came through get paid for their time. Although I don't think that's likely.
posted by Weeping_angel at 11:41 AM on April 19, 2013


"imma just gonna leave a
.
for the the 19 year old."

For a murderer? a cold-blooded murderer who sanely and with malice aforethought, planted bombs to maim and kill? seriously?
posted by marienbad at 2:04 PM on April 19 [+] [!]


I wrote something similar last night when I first heard that the suspects might be teenagers. It is entirely possible to have empathy for both victims and the killers-- especially when the killer is not fully grown-up and might be subject to pressure from an older brother. This boy will have to take full responsibility for what he and his brother did and, if captured alive, will have to live with that responsibility for the rest of his life. It isn't out of place to mourn a life that has so badly gone off the rails, especially when you read the descriptions by friends and classmates of a happy college student that was doing well with his studies.
posted by Secret Life of Gravy at 11:42 AM on April 19, 2013 [9 favorites]


But I can't see how you can look at what we know of him and think "yep, this kid's just bad."

He put a bomb down and pointed it at children watching (for all he knew) their dad finishing a marathon and looked another victim directly in the eyes, knowing he was going to blow them into pieces.

Yup, this kid's just bad.
posted by Golden Eternity at 11:42 AM on April 19, 2013 [6 favorites]


The Onion:

BREAKING: No News Breaking

BREAKING: Has The Word ‘Breaking’ Lost All Its Meaning?

BREAKING: Still Nothing

BREAKING: Can Anyone Ever Truly Know Anything? What Is The Truth?

BREAKING: We Might Be Doing A Bad Job

BREAKING: Do You Think We’re Doing A Good Job?

[I initially wrote "The Onion is killing it" then wanted to go less violent and could only think of "The Onion nails it" so I just gave up.]
posted by SassHat at 11:42 AM on April 19, 2013 [47 favorites]


I know everyone's worried but at what point and on whose authority do they just give up the manhunt + let everyone get back to life?
posted by Potomac Avenue at 11:43 AM on April 19, 2013


Oh I totally get that. It's wishful thinking for a city that has had a rough week, is all. Would not object to better labor provisions for hourly workers, but that deserves its own thread.
posted by ambrosia at 11:43 AM on April 19, 2013


Question: Since the suspect has a (likely) known twitter account, and possibly online accounts, wouldn't it be possible to get the MAC address of the device, and do some sort of trigger if that device was online?

If he was using a mobile phone to follow the news, could he be located that way?
posted by CheeseDigestsAll at 11:43 AM on April 19, 2013




He put a bomb down and pointed it at children watching (for all he knew) their dad finishing a marathon and looked another victim directly in the eyes, knowing he was going to blow them into pieces.

Yup, this kid's just bad.

And/or mentally ill, of course.
posted by jaduncan at 11:43 AM on April 19, 2013 [1 favorite]


I am sorry that the brothers felt this was necessary, and I pity them. Maybe not forgive, but I do feel sorry that their lives turned out this way.
posted by rosswald at 11:43 AM on April 19, 2013 [3 favorites]


The best compliment you can give The Onion is "I can't tell if this is from The Onion or not!"
posted by dobi at 11:44 AM on April 19, 2013 [2 favorites]


Judging from his alleged twitter feed, he was pretty knowledgeable about American culture...
posted by drezdn at 11:44 AM on April 19, 2013


I know everyone's worried but at what point and on whose authority do they just give up the manhunt + let everyone get back to life?

Once they've killed or captured himor they finished the house to house searches and haven't found him.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 11:45 AM on April 19, 2013


So he moved to America with his older brother, most likely as a refugee, and from what we can tell, he neither assimilated into or adopted the culture to any major extent and found himself alienated. Whether one led to the other, and which to which, is in the air.

I've been pouring over his 1k tweets. Other than a few choice tweets that are getting circulated in the media, it reads like he's your average American kid. He likes Breaking Bad and Key & Peele. He procrastinates on his homework. He quotes Jay-z and Eminem. He's pretty immersed in American culture. (Yes, there's casual homophobia/misogyny/racism. Unfortunately, that's also not unusual for teenage twitter users.).
posted by murfed13 at 11:45 AM on April 19, 2013 [5 favorites]


The reason I'm so interested in hearing what this guy's campus life was like is that it seems that if there was marked or snowballing alienation, it's relatively recent. Superficially at least, it sounds as if this kid was WAY more engaged and successful in navigating high school culture than pretty much any American-born teen mass killer.
posted by FelliniBlank at 11:45 AM on April 19, 2013 [1 favorite]


One thing I have learned from listening to a scanner while working is that it really must be embarassing to be called out by full name for having an open mike.

We yelled "HOT MIKE!" whenever anyone did that, when I was in Iraq. One guy did it so much that we actually started calling him "Hot Mike." The Battalion Commander called him Mike at his award ceremony at the end of our tour. Everyone found it hilarious. Except, of course, Chris.
posted by Etrigan at 11:45 AM on April 19, 2013 [85 favorites]


I simultaneously feel bad that they turned out the way they apparently did while at the same time not being particularly upset by seeing the older brother's corpse in the morgue on Twitter.
posted by Elementary Penguin at 11:45 AM on April 19, 2013


And/or mentally ill, of course.

Haven't seen any evidence to support that, yet.
posted by BobbyVan at 11:45 AM on April 19, 2013 [3 favorites]


Seymour Zamboni: "It has turned into a perfect spring day for a manhunt in Boston..partly sunny, 70 degrees, light south winds."

METAFILTER: PERFECT DAY FOR A MANHUNT
posted by symbioid at 11:45 AM on April 19, 2013 [8 favorites]


TIL that Reddit and The New Yorker are both owned by the same company.

(Reddit is owned by Advance Publications, the parent company of Condé Nast, which is the publisher of The New Yorker.)

posted by chavenet at 11:45 AM on April 19, 2013




Yes, there's casual homophobia/misogyny/racism. Unfortunately, that's also not unusual for teenage twitter users.

Or for American culture.
posted by jason_steakums at 11:46 AM on April 19, 2013 [4 favorites]


Which doesn't mean he wasn't internally a seething mass of malice and emptiness, but whatever.
posted by FelliniBlank at 11:46 AM on April 19, 2013


FWIW, they have a sister in the US as well. There's a Google News report about her cooperating with the investigation.
posted by mudpuppie at 11:46 AM on April 19, 2013


(If I got any of the facts wrong up there, please feel free to correct me.)

I haven't been following the kid's personal story too closely (because it's so early and I don't like armchair psychologizing and really, who the hell knows?), but from what little I have seen he does appear to have been reasonably well-assimilated. I mean maybe that was all superficial and he was really a tortured, lonely soul underneath. Maybe something happened that made him snap. We don't know yet, we may never know, and speculation gets silly right quick, as CNN's coverage of this proves. But I don't think, right now, there's much grounding to say that he didn't "assimilate or adopt the culture to any major extent." That may very well be true, in the final reckoning, but what little shards of information we have about him right now indicate that it is not the case.
posted by breakin' the law at 11:46 AM on April 19, 2013


That would certainly suggest that he was pretty much assimilated, I think.

Is the social media stuff verified or not yet? I mean, there's levels of assimilation, of course. But he may have kept up a vKontakte profile. He may have followed European football. You don't live in this country from 9 years old and not adapt, but there's levels. I came to America from Russia when I was 6, many of my friends did as well from similar places (Belarus, Ukraine, Azerbaijan, etc.) the same age, we all lived in Russian neighborhoods and had Russian friends but I can name maybe two people that follow European football and not a single one with a vKontakte profile.

None of this points to anything concrete of course, and I'm using my own (very, very roughly) similar experiences as a baseline, but this kid wasn't 100% football games and apple pie or whatever (although he may have very well enjoyed both.)
posted by griphus at 11:46 AM on April 19, 2013 [1 favorite]


Patch Employee Detained in Search for Bomb Suspect -- "Patch Associate Regional Ad Director Al Wilson was detained by police after returning to his home in Watertown on Thursday night."
posted by ericb at 11:47 AM on April 19, 2013


or they finished the house to house searches and haven't found him.

Every house in Boston? Following reports on twitter--it's not just Watertown they're going house-to-house in.
posted by Potomac Avenue at 11:47 AM on April 19, 2013


For those wondering to what extent we should acknowledge the mere kid-ness of this evil kid,

By casting a person as evil, you refuse to acknowledge your common humanity with him. By acknowledging it, you may want to punish him, but at least you are admitting that he and you are of similar stock, albeit in very different places in life.

He's a kid. That's partly why it hurts us.
posted by stonepharisee at 11:47 AM on April 19, 2013 [35 favorites]



Once they've killed or captured himor they finished the house to house searches and haven't found him.

I just don't see an endgame for him here. Eric Rudolph had a support network, assets to draw from, and was capable of disappearing into - and surviving - in the woods for days at a time.

This kid doesn't seem to have any of those things.
posted by Pogo_Fuzzybutt at 11:48 AM on April 19, 2013



Every house in Boston? Following reports on twitter--it's not just Watertown they're going house-to-house in.


God that is so scary.
posted by sweetkid at 11:48 AM on April 19, 2013


Is the social media stuff verified or not yet?

Anyone who he tweets with who hasn't locked their account seem to think it's him (not that he's guilty, but that the name/pic the media are giving out match their friend).
posted by drezdn at 11:48 AM on April 19, 2013


This boy will have to take full responsibility for what he and his brother did and, if captured alive, will have to live with that responsibility for the rest of his life. It isn't out of place to mourn a life that has so badly gone off the rails, especially when you read the descriptions by friends and classmates of a happy college student that was doing well with his studies.

Yes, this. This kid is so damned young, and his life is now effectively over. It's...unnerving...to see someone so young flush his life away in such a horrible fashion. I can't help but notice that he could be my own kid, smack in between my 21 and 17 year-old Monsters, and it just makes me terribly sad for everyone involved.
posted by MissySedai at 11:49 AM on April 19, 2013 [4 favorites]


stonepharisee: "He's a kid. That's partly why it hurts us."

An American kid, to boot.
posted by chavenet at 11:49 AM on April 19, 2013 [4 favorites]


Immigration and integration experiences are different for everyone. I have met people's grandparents who came to America in the 50's and didn't know any English and cared little about learning any, conversely I have met people who were genuinely enjoying studying for their citizenship test.

Some people consider themselves American right-away, some never. It really comes down to "self-identification," and it doesn't seem like we will get a clear picture of that now.
posted by rosswald at 11:49 AM on April 19, 2013 [3 favorites]


Ericb: Indeed, that is a great story. Coworker in question a good dude and I'm really glad he's safe. Patch editors in general doing an amazing job in Boston the last few days.
posted by Potomac Avenue at 11:49 AM on April 19, 2013 [1 favorite]


If I'm placing a bet, it goes on "he assimilated just fine but was also extremely close to his brother." I mean, who's more likely to be the leader - the younger all-American kid or the elder brother who talks publicly about not liking Americans and who just spent six months in the homeland where "his people" (as it were) are basically whipping boys for an entire country?
posted by Holy Zarquon's Singing Fish at 11:49 AM on April 19, 2013 [2 favorites]


I was thinking - what if he like killed a cop silently and donned his clothes and either went into a house or escaped while in uniform? (I doubt that would happen, it seems so movielike, but since we're already talking Murakami fantasticism, may as well posit that idea).
posted by symbioid at 11:50 AM on April 19, 2013 [1 favorite]


Nate Bell sure is getting some "Boston love" on the comments to that Facebook non-apology. Hoo, boy!
posted by AwkwardPause at 11:51 AM on April 19, 2013 [5 favorites]


Dzokhar Tsarnaev is the same age as my son, born within days of each other. I would like to say something about how impulsive and immature young men this age can be, but I was also once the mother of a beautiful eight year old boy.
posted by readery at 11:51 AM on April 19, 2013 [40 favorites]


Maybe he flirted with radical Islam. Maybe his brother got him into this. Maybe, maybe, maybe. But he's a kid who has had a hard life and made some massively stupid and horribly destructive choices. But I can't see how you can look at what we know of him and think "yep, this kid's just bad."

Well, he's a Muslim. That's all one has to say in this country, and it's a hell of a lot easier for Americans to believe that evil is this thing that exists only in Muslims than to believe that our culture of violence and exclusion could possibly have something to do with it.

The infotainment media plays along for ratings, we play along because we get to feel good and patriotic for punishing the evildoers, and the government plays along so they don't have to do anything meaningful besides accept massive improvements to their security state while we gladly hand over every last freedom to be protected from what many countries deal with on a weekly basis. And the cycle continues.
posted by tripping daisy at 11:51 AM on April 19, 2013 [2 favorites]


I'm sure Islam's violent streak influenced the details

WHY
posted by MisantropicPainforest at 11:51 AM on April 19, 2013 [4 favorites]


"Patch Associate Regional Ad Director Al Wilson was detained by police after returning to his home in Watertown on Thursday night."

And? From the way the guy was driving around and then walking around ("300 yards") going back to his house, anyone is surprised that he got detained shortly by law enforcement to verify that he wasn't the guy they were looking for?

An "Officers, I'm trying to get back to my house over there, is there a problem I should be aware of?" would have avoided a lot of this it seems.
posted by mrbill at 11:51 AM on April 19, 2013


And/or mentally ill, of course.

Haven't seen any evidence to support that, yet.


Other than, y'know, planting bombs at a marathon then robbing a 7-11 and shooting a cop.
posted by axiom at 11:52 AM on April 19, 2013 [6 favorites]


If I'm placing a bet, it goes on "he assimilated just fine but was also extremely close to his brother." I mean, who's more likely to be the leader - the younger all-American kid or the elder brother who talks publicly about not liking Americans and who just spent six months in the homeland where "his people" (as it were) are basically whipping boys for an entire country?

If he flew into Moscow and stayed there looking Chechen, I can't think that he'd have a great experience. I know plenty of Georgians given arbitrary 48 hour arrests and beatings in the past.
posted by jaduncan at 11:52 AM on April 19, 2013 [2 favorites]


I'll be really interested to hear what the UMASS part of the investigation yields.

If they find a DVD of Four Lions I will shit my leg off.
posted by Lentrohamsanin at 11:52 AM on April 19, 2013 [9 favorites]


Instead, we've two kids who grew up here and turned towards violence in much same manor as the Columbine shooters. As they graduated first, they selected their target from outside their school world, otherwise this looks like Columbine.

Except that at least one of them is still in school. And they apparently attacked random people they didn't know instead of say, coworkers or family members.
posted by Jahaza at 11:53 AM on April 19, 2013


Patch Employee Detained in Search for Bomb Suspect -- "Patch Associate Regional Ad Director Al Wilson was detained by police after returning to his home in Watertown on Thursday night."

That's the weirdest story. He's outside his house, in his car, seeing all this police activity, and he gets out of his car and starts to run back to his house. I would have been freaked out all to hell, but starting to run anywhere in the situation he describes just seems like the worst possible idea.
posted by OmieWise at 11:53 AM on April 19, 2013 [3 favorites]


Meanwhile Grassley is using this as an opportunity to take shots at immigration reform. As if more stringent background checks on an 9 year old and a 16 year old would have prevented all this.
posted by axiom at 11:54 AM on April 19, 2013 [1 favorite]




By casting a person as evil, you refuse to acknowledge your common humanity with him.

This is not at all true in classical Christian conceptions of good and evil.
posted by Jahaza at 11:54 AM on April 19, 2013 [1 favorite]


This is not at all true in classical Christian conceptions of good and evil.

Presumably there is more than one way to think about good and evil.
posted by scody at 11:56 AM on April 19, 2013 [15 favorites]


As much as it hurts my heart, nineteen year olds are more than capable of full blown adult evil.
For that matter, please remember that eighteen and nineteen year olds are quite old enough and frequently are soldiers. Just because for most of us this age seems incredibly young, in point of fact....well, old enough to know better than this.
posted by St. Alia of the Bunnies at 11:56 AM on April 19, 2013 [9 favorites]


Video from one of his high school buddies, a co-op at the boston globe.
posted by jenkinsEar at 11:56 AM on April 19, 2013 [1 favorite]


"Haven't seen any evidence to support that, yet."

It's the Foucault complaint that everyone who breaks fundamental social rules will be seen as mentally ill. The idea that a sane person detonated bombs at the marathon is too ugly to address easily (and raises a lot of "what is sane?" questions).
posted by klangklangston at 11:56 AM on April 19, 2013 [6 favorites]




And/or mentally ill, of course.

Haven't seen any evidence to support that, yet.

Other than, y'know, planting bombs at a marathon then robbing a 7-11 and shooting a cop.


Can we drop this? People with mental illnesses are disproportionately more likely to be victims of violence than its perpetrators.
posted by Jilder at 11:57 AM on April 19, 2013 [22 favorites]


But I can't see how you can look at what we know of him and think "yep, this kid's just bad."

Probably has something to do with all that murder.
posted by spaltavian at 11:57 AM on April 19, 2013 [4 favorites]


I'm a little behind on comments, but can someone let me know if there is genuine concern for NYC at the moment?
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 11:57 AM on April 19, 2013


By casting a person as evil, you refuse to acknowledge your common humanity with him.

This is not at all true in classical Christian conceptions of good and evil.


No, but it does seem to be true in the worldview that takes as axiomatic that making negative value judgements about someone who has done something bad is somehow always the wrong thing to do.
posted by OmieWise at 11:58 AM on April 19, 2013 [2 favorites]


Courses offered in modern dance.

The horror!
posted by The 10th Regiment of Foot at 11:58 AM on April 19, 2013 [2 favorites]


Other than, y'know, planting bombs at a marathon then robbing a 7-11 and shooting a cop.

I think assuming those actions are projections of his mental illness, rather than the moral choices of a deeply misguided -- even evil -- person, dehumanizes the suspect... and of course unnecessarily stigmatizes the mentally ill.
posted by BobbyVan at 11:58 AM on April 19, 2013 [12 favorites]


A key quote from the Murakami article:

An acute difficulty ... is the loss — if only temporarily — of coordinate axes with which to form standards of evaluation. Such axes were there until now, functioning as reliable bases on which to measure the value of things. They sat at the head of the table as the paterfamilias of values, deciding what conformed and what did not. Now we wake up to find that not only the head of the household but the table itself has vanished. All around us, it appears, things have been — or are being — swallowed up by chaos.
posted by angrycat at 11:59 AM on April 19, 2013 [2 favorites]


Courses offered in modern dance.

Well, there's your motive right there.
posted by papercake at 11:59 AM on April 19, 2013


"This is not at all true in classical Christian conceptions of good and evil."

The Christian tradition does have some strong Manichaean currents in it.
posted by klangklangston at 11:59 AM on April 19, 2013 [1 favorite]


For that matter, please remember that eighteen and nineteen year olds are quite old enough and frequently are soldiers. Just because for most of us this age seems incredibly young, in point of fact....well, old enough to know better than this.

One might conclude instead that using 18 and 19 year olds as soldiers is perhaps not the greatest thing ever. It's the standard international law has agreed on, but I think there's plenty of reason to think it's not the greatest choice.
posted by hoyland at 11:59 AM on April 19, 2013 [7 favorites]


An "Officers, I'm trying to get back to my house over there, is there a problem I should be aware of?" would have avoided a lot of this it seems.

He did tell the officer he was near his house:
asked if I could see my house. I told him I could see my street and the next door neighbor's. He told me it was very dangerous and that many cops were looking to "shoot someone."
I don't find it odd he was stopped given the situation. I do have reservations about what the officer told him and how he was told to run back to his house without escort (raising the risk that he would be stopped again by officers who didn't know who he was).
posted by audi alteram partem at 11:59 AM on April 19, 2013


The cover of next week's New Yorker is both powerful and beautiful.
posted by Wordshore at 12:00 PM on April 19, 2013 [6 favorites]


Probably has something to do with all that murder.

As everyone knows, murder is a completely rational choice that healthy people with good jobs, great opportunities, easy access to health care and safe homes make all the damn time.
posted by tripping daisy at 12:01 PM on April 19, 2013 [4 favorites]


"I think assuming those actions are projections of his mental illness, rather than the moral choices of a deeply misguided -- even evil -- person, dehumanizes the suspect... and of course unnecessarily stigmatizes the mentally ill.

You might get a kick out of Madness and Civilization. It's one of the only Foucault books I read all the way though, though I'm not going to pretend that I understood it all or that it was an easy read. (Part of a college Existentialism class.)
posted by klangklangston at 12:01 PM on April 19, 2013 [2 favorites]


The Christian tradition does have some strong Manichaean currents in it.

Well, yes, but Manichaeanism is a Christian heresy (i.e. outside the classical Christian conception of good and evil), for pretty much this very reason. Philosophers/Theologians like Augustine sought to find a way to recognize evil in the actions of man without externalizing it by positing an uncontrolled evil force equal to the good in the world.
posted by Jahaza at 12:02 PM on April 19, 2013 [2 favorites]


"As everyone knows, murder is a completely rational choice that healthy people with good jobs, great opportunities, easy access to health care and safe homes make all the damn time."

Yeah, actually, they do, with surprising regularity. Making it about a "rational choice" is getting into dubious territory, but trying to frame it all as the revenge of the dispossessed is tenuous.
posted by klangklangston at 12:03 PM on April 19, 2013 [13 favorites]


No, roomthreeseventeen, no NYC threat. The only angle local news here is covering is the questioning of the suspects' sister in New Jersey.
posted by keever at 12:03 PM on April 19, 2013


As much as it hurts my heart, nineteen year olds are more than capable of full blown adult evil.

Well, I'm not sure if anyone's arguing against the fact that the act was evil.
posted by griphus at 12:03 PM on April 19, 2013 [3 favorites]


Boston Globe reporter Jenn Abelson spoke to their cousin in Dagestan who claimed the younger brother is an innocent and that the older brother was a gangster and had dealt drugs. He told her that he'd warned the younger brother about the older brother many times.

Its interesting. I hope we learn more in the days to come. I have a lot of counsins myself, who have varying degress of knowledge about me. Maybe this is a cousin they regularly communicated with and met on their trips back to Russia, or maybe not.
posted by Area Man at 12:03 PM on April 19, 2013 [1 favorite]


For those worried about the "lockdown" - people are coming and going (albeit with lesser frequency) in Back Bay. No one is being stopped from doing so.

(We're also nowhere near the manhunt area, which helps.)
posted by sonika at 12:04 PM on April 19, 2013


I think the original plan was to chill out, and play it cool. Once they realized the gig was up, they tried to split town - but they needed cash and road beers first.

More than anything, this doesn't seem to have been planned that well - though they've done an impressive job of avoiding capture so far.


The Father told media the boys were planning on going back to Russia in a few days. Their aunt was supposed to fly back on the 24. Perhaps they would have been going together.

I sorta wonder if that was the original getaway plan - do some chaos, have a big fuck you to the US and set sail for Russia, with love.

Seems crazy to me, but it seems to line up I guess - assuming what the father said was true.
posted by Pogo_Fuzzybutt at 12:04 PM on April 19, 2013 [2 favorites]


I am bearish on the likelihood that we will settle once and for all the questions of either the nature of good and evil or of the meaning and scope of mental illness right here and now. Maybe consider holding off on that stuff a bit for now in here?
posted by cortex at 12:05 PM on April 19, 2013 [26 favorites]


Not a linguist, but Robin Young's nephew, who characterized Dzokhar as a close friend from high school, consistently pronounced the name "Joe-har". His NPR interlocutor pronounced it "Joe-kar". The young man did not correct the elder.

Holy shit. The Boston marathon bombing was perpetrated by the Joker, who is still at large. I think this can only end in a strange gun fight in a chemical plant, with a body never recovered.
posted by kaibutsu at 12:06 PM on April 19, 2013 [3 favorites]


"Philosophers/Theologians like Augustine sought to find a way to recognize evil in the actions of man without externalizing it by positing an uncontrolled evil force equal to the good in the world."

Interestingly, Augustine was a Manichaean before he converted to Christianity.
posted by klangklangston at 12:06 PM on April 19, 2013 [1 favorite]


As everyone knows, murder is a completely rational choice that healthy people with good jobs, great opportunities, easy access to health care and safe homes make all the damn time.

I'm hoping there's some hamburger there, tripping daises, because generally pleading insanity is not a very useful tactic in murder defenses. Something like 74% failure rate. So generally, as far as a jury of peers is concerned, the vast majority of convicted murderers are sane, rational people, making rational decisions. Just not good ones, or empathetic ones, or kind ones.
posted by Jilder at 12:07 PM on April 19, 2013 [1 favorite]


I do have reservations about what the officer told him and how he was told to run back to his house without escort

I have been detained by police a few times in my youth, not for illegal activities so much as being just a dumb teen. I've seen similar intimidation tactics, as I was lying face down on the pavement, a cop saying "It's a good thing the K9 unit a block up didn't find you, they would have put the dogs on you." or "We were ordered to shoot first and ask questions later." Ridiculous things to say to kids carrying Slurpees (or so I would have thought until about a year ago.)

Lies aside, the purpose is clearly to wake you up, get the adrenaline running and put the fear of near death in you. I bet that reporter ran faster than he's run in his adult life and was out of the way of the real activity quickly.
posted by chemoboy at 12:07 PM on April 19, 2013


Yep, I thought about that earlier, wondering what effect it would have on a kid to grow up here with a name that can be pronounced as "Joker."
posted by limeonaire at 12:07 PM on April 19, 2013


"I think this can only end in a strange gun fight in a chemical plant, with a body never recovered."

Too bad there's no way to link him to West, Texas.
posted by klangklangston at 12:07 PM on April 19, 2013


klangklangston: ""This could be said of anyone that commits crimes like this."

The general gist of any true crime police book, Homicide by David Simon especially, is that cops catch criminals mainly because criminals are dumb. Like, #1 reason by a length.
"

Also that there are a lot more cops.
posted by chavenet at 12:08 PM on April 19, 2013




Boston Globe reporter Jenn Abelson spoke to their cousin in Dagestan who claimed the younger brother is an innocent and that the older brother was a gangster and had dealt drugs. He told her that he'd warned the younger brother about the older brother many times.

If this is true, it does start to feel potentially like a variation on the Columbine/Beltway Sniper folie-à-deux scenario (Harris : Klebold :: Muhammed : Malvo).
posted by scody at 12:08 PM on April 19, 2013 [7 favorites]


As everyone knows, murder is a completely rational choice that healthy people with good jobs, great opportunities, easy access to health care and safe homes make all the damn time.

Uh? I'm not sure what you are saying here. That murder is a rational choice for poor people with no health insurance? That irrational always = mental illness? Either way, it doesn't make much sense.
posted by murfed13 at 12:08 PM on April 19, 2013


It's like everyone is in full freak-out mode.

That's kind of how I'm feeling, and I'm not even in the US right now. I mean, obviously, I'm not afraid that I'm about to be bombed, but this whole week has just got me completely emotionally exhausted and on edge. The Onion is absolutely bang on with their Jesus, This Week story.

I can't remember who it was, but someone once described the guy at the lower left corner of Action Comics #1 as being a near perfect representation of the mindset of contemporary life. A dude just flipping out in a sort of "Now this?!" kind of way.

For me, it's probably more like Ray Pettibon's cover for the original Nervous Breakdown EP by Black Flag. Specifically the guy with his dukes up who just doesn't seem to give a shit anymore. That, or this gif from The Emperor's New Groove.


Although, I have to say, I'm kind of digging Uncle Ruslan's approach to the whole matter, as bad as I feel for the man.
posted by TheWhiteSkull at 12:10 PM on April 19, 2013 [4 favorites]


I'm hoping there's some hamburger there, tripping daises, because generally pleading insanity is not a very useful tactic in murder defenses. Something like 74% failure rate. So generally, as far as a jury of peers is concerned, the vast majority of murders are committed by sane, rational people, making rational decisions. Just not good ones, or empathetic ones, or kind ones.

I'm pretty sure that the decision to do something being rational is not a prerequisite for being criminally culpable. Being able to make a rational decision, yes, but not having made one.
posted by hoyland at 12:10 PM on April 19, 2013


Bruins game scheduled for tonight has been postponed.

The Red Sox have also posted on FaceBook that their home game has been postponed.
posted by Jahaza at 12:11 PM on April 19, 2013



So I decided to read some comments on some the articles on various news sites. The Canadian ones are filled with just as many inane and ignorant comments as all the US ones I've browsed.

I came back here.

I'm just going to stay here until this is over.

Thank you Metafilter for being an oasis of the 'not stupid'.
posted by Jalliah at 12:11 PM on April 19, 2013 [22 favorites]


As everyone knows, murder is a completely rational choice that healthy people with good jobs, great opportunities, easy access to health care and safe homes make all the damn time.

I fail to see any irony in this statement.
posted by KokuRyu at 12:11 PM on April 19, 2013


By casting a person as evil, you refuse to acknowledge your common humanity with him.

There's really no content here; just abstractions and question begging. "Evil" has nothing to with humanity or lack there of, and the meaning or importance of said "humanity" is an irrelevant philosophical exercise on the part of the speaker.

The people who were murdered are the tragic element to this story. The ultimate fate of this alleged murderer is not a tragedy (unless he's innocent) , and my lack of "community" or empathy with him says nothing about my "humanity" or his.

I hope he's captured, gets a fair trial, and if convicted, goes to prison for the rest of his life. I don't believe in souls; unless one does there is no such thing as "common humanity" aside from DNA and the social contract. Setting off bombs at marathons breaks said contract.

As everyone knows, murder is a completely rational choice that healthy people with good jobs, great opportunities, easy access to health care and safe homes make all the damn time.

Does imagining that no one is responsible for their actions make things easier for you to process? Because the idea that this person had no choice really leads to the idea that everyone is a blackbox ticking time bomb. Does that world really seem rosier to you?

The fact of the matter is that people without the challenges you mention do horrible things all the time and most people with all those challenges don't. He's not a p-zombie. He's possibly mentally disturbed to the point that he can't make real decisions, but he's more likely a murderous asshole who's actions are tenuously connected to grievances that may or may not have any legitimacy.
posted by spaltavian at 12:12 PM on April 19, 2013 [8 favorites]


It's like everyone is in full freak-out mode.

I had to leave a musical at intermission last night because in the middle of the first act they had a fake gunshot sound coming from the back of the theatre that could not be anticipated. I had an awful panic attack.
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 12:12 PM on April 19, 2013


Thank you Metafilter for being an oasis of the 'not stupid'.

Don't worry, you arrived just in time for the "are all killers mentally ill or not?" portion of the thread.
posted by dry white toast at 12:13 PM on April 19, 2013 [7 favorites]


Thank you Metafilter for being an oasis of the 'not stupid'.

Metafilter: your bright star in a dim galaxy since 1999.
posted by shothotbot at 12:13 PM on April 19, 2013 [6 favorites]


I think that if any of the more experienced terror networks had been involved in this, we'd be looking at a lot more bodies, including the two brothers. But little of what's been revealed so far about the brothers seems inconsistent with Atran's ideas that terrorists are ordinary people with certain ideas about justice who get involved in social networks that reinforce those ideas. The 2005 London attack seems more relevant to me than Columbine at this time.
posted by CBrachyrhynchos at 12:14 PM on April 19, 2013


I have never been more thankful to have a non touch Kindle 3G than I have today. Even though the web browser is primitive, it does great with text-based sites like MeFi. So I could read the thread on my commute without draining my phone or draining my data usage.
posted by spinifex23 at 12:14 PM on April 19, 2013


"Does imagining that no one is responsible for their actions make things easier for you to process? Because the idea that this person had no choice really leads to the idea that everyone is a blackbox ticking time bomb. Does that world really seem rosier to you?"

You can argue a lack of free will/determinism without making everyone a black box ticking time bomb, but still doing real damage to the concept of responsibility.

Pretty sure that won't be a popular interpretation, but hey.
posted by klangklangston at 12:14 PM on April 19, 2013 [1 favorite]


This would be a bad day to be a pot head in Watertown.
posted by angrycat at 12:16 PM on April 19, 2013 [8 favorites]


I haven't been following this *terribly* closely, but has any sort of motive been established?

The number of people who are reporting that the brothers seemed "pretty normal" is alarming. I'm not hopping on any conspiracy theory bandwagons, but... the guys were planning a mass murder while simultaneously living out seemingly normal lives? That doesn't add up.
posted by schmod at 12:16 PM on April 19, 2013


Really? I'd think that today would be one of those days where getting high and staying in is about the perfect response.
posted by klangklangston at 12:16 PM on April 19, 2013 [8 favorites]


Lies aside, the purpose is clearly to wake you up, get the adrenaline running and put the fear of near death in you. I bet that reporter ran faster than he's run in his adult life and was out of the way of the real activity quickly.

That may be a purpose, but it certainly isn't the only reason why LEOs may act this way and certainly not the only effect. Given the history of police excessive force, especially after a fellow office has been shot or killed, those "lies" may read to some more as threats or at least not entirely unlikely predictions of what could happen. For example, the recent shooting of civilians in the Dorner case.

If the goal is to clear a subject and get him to his house quickly, I think that can be done without the police raising the specter of wanting to "shoot someone."
posted by audi alteram partem at 12:16 PM on April 19, 2013


It's discomfiting to me, for reasons I can't quite articulate, that the suspects are so frequently referred to as "these kids" or "these boys."

They are both men. Adults. Fully responsible for their actions. No?
posted by argonauta at 12:17 PM on April 19, 2013 [4 favorites]


Flunkie, that comment you are responding to is from two hours ago and has been discussed to death.
Just got to this response, which was written an hour ago, now. I am officially catching up!
posted by Flunkie at 12:17 PM on April 19, 2013


"I haven't been following this *terribly* closely, but has any sort of motive been established? "

I Don't Like Mondays.
posted by klangklangston at 12:17 PM on April 19, 2013 [2 favorites]


Really? I'd think that today would be one of those days where getting high and staying in is about the perfect response.

I think angrycat was talking about the moment when the door-to-door search gets to your place.
posted by dry white toast at 12:17 PM on April 19, 2013 [1 favorite]


The number of people who are reporting that the brothers seemed "pretty normal" is alarming. I'm not hopping on any conspiracy theory bandwagons, but... the guys were planning a mass murder while simultaneously living out seemingly normal lives? That doesn't add up.

Really? I thought "they seemed so normal" was so common as to be cliched after things like this.
posted by Bulgaroktonos at 12:17 PM on April 19, 2013 [16 favorites]


A reporter on WBUR just tried to describe the Soviet-era policy of subverting nationalism in the republics by resettling other ethnicities as "they tried to make it more of a melting pot."
posted by Horace Rumpole at 12:18 PM on April 19, 2013 [5 favorites]


New York Road Runners new security policy for this weekend, for those who are local and might be interested:

Race-day registration, T-shirt pickup, and baggage drop-off will be located inside Rumsey Playfield. Everyone who enters Rumsey Playfield will be subject to a security screening.

We strongly encourage you not to bring a bag to Central Park. However, if you’re registering or picking up your race materials on race day and bring a bag, you will be given a clear bag at the entrance to Rumsey Playfield. You must transfer the contents of your own bag into the clear bag before you proceed to the registration tent. Any unattended bags will be confiscated by NYPD and could cause an interruption to the day’s events.

There will be no trash cans in the race vicinity this weekend. We encourage you to hand your trash to our volunteers and staff members.

Toilets along the course will be located only at mile 2. Kids’ Races will start on West Drive (running east on the 72nd Street Transverse) and end at the same finish line as the adult race.

Due to these changes, Kids’ Races will now start a half-hour later at 9:30 a.m.

NYRR and the NYPD reserve the right to search any bag at any time, both within and outside the baggage area.
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 12:18 PM on April 19, 2013


I've heard people report that the younger brother was "normal" whereas the older had some trouble. But it is difficult to make any connections or draw any conclusions at this time, as we are also getting conflicting reports of their origins and lifestyles.
posted by CancerMan at 12:18 PM on April 19, 2013


Yeah but if you're high and playing video games and there's a knock on the door
posted by angrycat at 12:18 PM on April 19, 2013 [4 favorites]


the guys were planning a mass murder while simultaneously living out seemingly normal lives? That doesn't add up.

Did you expect them to live in a skull-shaped fortress on a forbidden island?
posted by oulipian at 12:18 PM on April 19, 2013 [49 favorites]


I am a Canadian watching this very much from the outside (I've been glued to WHDH on and off for the last 4 hours) I'm wondering - is there any precedent for such a massive, intense manhunt in the USA? I'm a bit nervous to admit to Americans that when I turned on the news this morning, I thought "Wow, this is insane overkill." And now that I know about an officer killed and grenades/bombs being thrown during a fire fight, I pretty much get it. But I am still wondering if a pursuit of dangerous suspects quite like this has ever happened before? What does this mean for future pursuits? (Please, let this question be 'not stupid').
posted by kitcat at 12:19 PM on April 19, 2013 [1 favorite]


I think these dumbasses thought "hey ... Big crowd ... We can make some bombs and leave them there ... Split the scene and get some lulz" ... And were too naive and unsophisticated to realize they WOULD be caught. They thought: Big crowd = anonymity = impunity.

They didn't anticipate being identified.

When their pictures were suddenly EVERYWHERE, they could trust no one, not friends, not family, not neighbors, all of whom would have seen the pics.

So they were desperate and, lacking resources, felt they had to commit a robbery to get money to flee.

But they didn't know how to commit a robbery.

I had a feeling the release of the pics would flush them put quickly. The logistics of survival under these circumstances is virtually impossible.
posted by Unified Theory at 12:19 PM on April 19, 2013 [5 favorites]


I haven't been following this *terribly* closely, but has any sort of motive been established?

The number of people who are reporting that the brothers seemed "pretty normal" is alarming. I'm not hopping on any conspiracy theory bandwagons, but... the guys were planning a mass murder while simultaneously living out seemingly normal lives? That doesn't add up.


No nothing has been established. Just tons of speculation.
posted by Jalliah at 12:19 PM on April 19, 2013


Really? I'd think that today would be one of those days where getting high and staying in is about the perfect response.

Yeah, but you can't get high until they search your house. Or you could, but the paranoia would ruin it.
posted by Weeping_angel at 12:19 PM on April 19, 2013 [1 favorite]


A reporter on WBUR just tried to describe the Soviet-era policy of subverting nationalism in the republics by resettling other ethnicities as "they tried to make it more of a melting pot.

¯\(°_o)/¯
posted by griphus at 12:19 PM on April 19, 2013 [17 favorites]


"I think angrycat was talking about the moment when the door-to-door search gets to your place."

I'd hope that the BPD would be pretty understanding today.
posted by klangklangston at 12:19 PM on April 19, 2013 [2 favorites]


Find your Boston Bomber name by taking the first name of an innocent man and the second name of an innocent man and posting it on reddit— dominic (@casiotone) April 19, 2013

posted by showbiz_liz at 12:21 PM on April 19, 2013 [44 favorites]


Possession of less than one ounce of marijuana is decriminalized in Mass. No biggie.
posted by murfed13 at 12:21 PM on April 19, 2013 [4 favorites]


Jalliah: "No nothing has been established. Just tons of speculation."

Absolute bollocks, really. Hours and hours of "we don't want to speculate here but we can't discount SOME AMAZINGLY RIDICULOUS THEORY blah blah Al Quaeda blah blah radicalization blah blah Kyrgyzstan and of course this.
posted by chavenet at 12:21 PM on April 19, 2013 [1 favorite]


I think BPD will have bigger concerns than a few roaches and bongs.
posted by Mister_A at 12:21 PM on April 19, 2013


Also, I think they're kind of fucking busy right now!
posted by showbiz_liz at 12:22 PM on April 19, 2013


the guys were planning a mass murder while simultaneously living out seemingly normal lives? That doesn't add up.

This occurred in Columbine and other mass killing events. No reason why it couldn't have happened. I'm not arguing that the people who did the Bostom bombings didn't have mess of bad wiring in their heads, either through genetics or circumstance.

But it's common for these sorts of killers to be appear non threatening and model citizens even as they're plotting, over long stretches of time, to kill people.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 12:22 PM on April 19, 2013 [1 favorite]


And even if they find a grow op, that's the sort of evidence a judge would toss tuit de suite.
posted by klangklangston at 12:22 PM on April 19, 2013


Decriminalized. Smoke it if you got it beleaguered Massachussetsites!
posted by jessamyn at 12:22 PM on April 19, 2013 [25 favorites]


I had to leave a musical at intermission last night because in the middle of the first act they had a fake gunshot sound coming from the back of the theatre that could not be anticipated. I had an awful panic attack.


I know how that feels. On 9/11 I was asleep in my apartment (more or less) down the street from the Pentagon. I had no idea what was going on until a loud noise woke me up (the impact of the airplane) and I heard more firetrucks than I've ever heard in my life screaming at full speed down the street.

Two months later I was buying a birthday present for my nephew in a Toys R Us. I picked up a cool looking firetruck that had real lights and sirens. The instant I turned the lights and sirens all that fear came flooding back. I put the toy fire truck down and walked out of the store, shaken.

I still don't like the sound of fire trucks.
posted by smoothvirus at 12:22 PM on April 19, 2013 [11 favorites]


kitcat, I think this is actually saner than what recently went on in LA during the hunt for Christopher Dorner. I think it's absolutely unprecedented in Boston, though.
posted by feloniousmonk at 12:22 PM on April 19, 2013


murfed13: "Possession of less than one ounce of marijuana is decriminalized in Mass. No biggie."

No baggie, amirite?
posted by chavenet at 12:22 PM on April 19, 2013


He put a bomb down and pointed it at children watching (for all he knew) their dad finishing a marathon and looked another victim directly in the eyes

It was the older brother who made eye contact with a victim at the first bomb site, I believe, which isn't to say the 19 year old wasn't equally capable at that time. He's since fired on police and driven over his wounded brother, evading capture. If he was bad Monday, he's more dangerously bad today. He's now in fear.


FWIW, they have a sister in the US as well

I read he has two sisters, both in their early twenties and both living in New York. It seems reasonable he'd be making his way to them. Odd that the media haven't been plaguing the sisters' homes seeking interviews and gross patriotism checks.
posted by de at 12:22 PM on April 19, 2013 [2 favorites]


I personally hope that the implications for "future manhunts" is moot because I wouldn't wish this on any city, not even a city built out of turds in hell.
posted by sonika at 12:23 PM on April 19, 2013 [4 favorites]


Boy, if we just keep at it, I'm sure this is the thread where we'll sort out all of our philosophical differences and finally nail down that pesky "universally appropriate ratio of empathy to scorn" problem. Hell, if we put a pot of coffee on we can probably sort out a hard-and-fast definition of evil and really take the bugs out of long-distance armchair psychoanalysis of complete ciphers before dinner.
posted by jason_steakums at 12:23 PM on April 19, 2013 [14 favorites]


For me the point is that by saying things like "monster" or to a lesser extent "evil" or to a much lesser extent (and only in the wrong context) "murderous asshole" (which I think I might agree with in this context) you're separating yourself from an analysis of why the world works the way it does.

Othering people gives comfort and is an effective cleansing action, but it also solidifies false boundaries between what's sane and insane, rational and irrational, your concerns and what other people think about, etc.
posted by tychotesla at 12:23 PM on April 19, 2013 [8 favorites]


If the goal is to clear a subject and get him to his house quickly, I think that can be done without the police raising the specter of wanting to "shoot someone."

Yes, I agree, it seems like the easiest way would be to escort him to his house. But this was at a very chaotic time and it's pretty peaceful right now on the blue. I was just saying that sometimes fear is a good motivator for keeping people alive. It may be mean, or cruel, to use it, but it sure beats the heartache of everyone involved if an innocent gets killed in something like this.
posted by chemoboy at 12:24 PM on April 19, 2013 [1 favorite]


I read he has two sisters, both in their early twenties and both living in New York. It seems reasonable he'd be making his way to them. Odd that the media haven't been plaguing the sisters' homes seeking interviews and gross patriotism checks.

That would be a really dick move unless they were involved somehow.
posted by sweetkid at 12:24 PM on April 19, 2013 [1 favorite]


When their pictures were suddenly EVERYWHERE, they could trust no one, not friends, not family, not neighbors, all of whom would have seen the pics.

I keep thinking of the last act of the movie "Heat," when they are fleeing the police, and that claustrophobic feeling of the cops closing in, especially after that gun fight in the open street. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WrioYLx-7Cs
posted by wenestvedt at 12:24 PM on April 19, 2013


@kitkat - the only precedent I can think of is when we had the DC Sniper(s) running around the area shooting people. What's going on in Boston right now seems to be a level past that though.
posted by smoothvirus at 12:24 PM on April 19, 2013


According to ABC, one sister lives in New Jersey, not NY, and her computer has been removed by police.
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 12:24 PM on April 19, 2013 [1 favorite]


I will toss out a motive - vis a vie the 'DC Snipers'.
Create mass chaos, enough so that you have peoples attention and are taken seriously.
Then ask for a mound of cash.
Aside from the fact they seem to have not thought this out, they were well on their way to sending up a note that would have gotten significant attention. What did the DC sniper(s) want - 10 million?

They have been called losers by a family member, not sure exactly what that means but if they are uncaring/unfeeling twits with bomb skills and thinking the world owes them a better life - well, after a few beers they are on their way.
posted by fluffycreature at 12:24 PM on April 19, 2013


gross patriotism checks.

I missed it - what were they asking the uncle, anyway?
posted by Nonsteroidal Anti-Inflammatory Drug at 12:26 PM on April 19, 2013


Yeah but if you're high and playing video games and there's a knock on the door

I'm really glad my neighbor, who spends approximately 10 hours a day getting super high and playing Call of Duty really loudly doesn't live in Watertown; I don't think that would be a good way to spend today.
posted by Bulgaroktonos at 12:26 PM on April 19, 2013 [1 favorite]



The cover of next week's New Yorker is both powerful and beautiful.

Am I supposed to be seeing something in the shape of the shadow?
posted by Windigo at 12:27 PM on April 19, 2013


I think once my daughter goes to sleep I am going to play Katamari Forever for the rest of the night.
posted by Elementary Penguin at 12:28 PM on April 19, 2013 [11 favorites]


I missed it - what were they asking the uncle, anyway?

"How do you feel about America?", essentially
posted by alligatorman at 12:28 PM on April 19, 2013 [1 favorite]




My personal speculation is something along the lines of 'disaffected youth' for whatever reasons that got melded into bigger ideas of becoming part of something bigger and fighting 'the big evil' like heroes.

Doesn't specifics don't matter so much. It's 'my life, things are shitty for whatever reason', I'll find someone or something else to blame or explain why and the reason is much bigger then I am, now I'm going to fight back against this 'thing' and be part of a bigger struggle.
posted by Jalliah at 12:28 PM on April 19, 2013 [3 favorites]


"Am I supposed to be seeing something in the shape of the shadow?"

Darkness? Memento mori?
posted by klangklangston at 12:29 PM on April 19, 2013


Best thoughts to you and your family, Elem Penguin. Been beaming good vibes your way this morning. :)
posted by Celsius1414 at 12:29 PM on April 19, 2013


That reddit live update post raises more questions than it answers. Rocket in the basement? Why are the dogs barking? What kind if food did OP go to get? I would suggest subway, I could go for subway right about now.
posted by Ad hominem at 12:30 PM on April 19, 2013 [3 favorites]


There seem to be a lot of guys wandering around the area with backpacks wearing hoodies.
posted by sammyo at 12:30 PM on April 19, 2013


Did you expect them to live in a skull-shaped fortress on a forbidden island?

I think a lot of this scrabbling speculation around their ethnicity, religion, affiliations and their mental health has been a constant search for "other". The notion that the guy next door could be plotting something as bad or worse while mowing the lawn and taking his kids to soccer without batting an eyelid is just too much to swallow.

I don't think it's a co-incidence that the Elvis Impersonator Ricin Guy has not roused nearly as much fear. Clearly that's what a mad poisoner looks like - writes whacked out websites and trots about dressed up as a man sixty years dead. But a teenager of 19 who has been described as fairly sociable and normal...that doesn't play right. He has to be an Other, somehow. Because if he's are no different than Us, well, that leads to some uncomfortable questions about whether or not under different circumstances we'd be capable of such horror, if pushed by the vicissitudes of fate. By making the bomber Other, we protect ourselves from their taint.

I wouldn't at all be surprised if, for example, the younger brother didn't have a concrete idea of how much damage those explosions would cause. Maybe he thought there was some sort of gas in them, or cows blood (for that Carrie look) or fucking confetti. We don't know that he had anything to do with the construction at all, so for all we know he may have thought there was something that would knock everyone out. For all we know he didn't know there were bombs in there at all. Maybe it was his idea, trying to appease some hunger in his less "normal" brother. Maybe there's someone else involved who masterminded it. Who knows?

But if we make them into fairy tale monsters and just assume that it's because that's what monsters do, we lose the opportunity to learn what motivated them, and in that we lose important information about how we can spot and prevent these things from happening again.
posted by Jilder at 12:32 PM on April 19, 2013 [62 favorites]


It's a college town. Every guy is issued a backpack and hoodie at orientation.
posted by klangklangston at 12:32 PM on April 19, 2013 [11 favorites]


Oh, and not sure if this has been mentioned here or not, but AMTRAK service has been suspended between Boston and NY according to Univision News.
@UniNoticias: Servicio AMTRAK entre Boston y Nueva York suspendido por los momentos, según @Boston_Police
posted by Celsius1414 at 12:32 PM on April 19, 2013


sammyo: There seem to be a lot of guys wandering around the area with backpacks wearing hoodies.
There are more than 50 colleges and universities in the area. That's your answer.
posted by ob1quixote at 12:33 PM on April 19, 2013 [1 favorite]


Nate Bell has apologized for the timing of his tweet.

Apology not accepted. Fuck you!
posted by ericb at 12:33 PM on April 19, 2013 [23 favorites]


Watching CBS just barely. Sorry, no link.

CBS' Bob Schieffer: "It's clear that these two brothers are jihadists of some sort."

Ugh.
posted by chemoboy at 12:35 PM on April 19, 2013


Has poor Sean Kelley from WCVB in Watertown gotten any sleep?
posted by maryr at 12:35 PM on April 19, 2013


I don't think it's a co-incidence that the Elvis Impersonator Ricin Guy has not roused nearly as much fear.

There's also the fact that he targeted politicians rather than random spectators lining a street. The degree to which one can imagine oneself as a victim certainly plays a crucial role in how much fear an attack causes.
posted by Horace Rumpole at 12:35 PM on April 19, 2013 [5 favorites]


I don't think it's a co-incidence that the Elvis Impersonator Ricin Guy has not roused nearly as much fear. Clearly that's what a mad poisoner looks like - writes whacked out websites and trots about dressed up as a man sixty years dead.

Thirty-five years dead, thank you. I'm not that fucking old.
posted by Etrigan at 12:35 PM on April 19, 2013 [17 favorites]


Apology not accepted. Fuck you!

Reading between the lines, he was sorry he tweeted it when he did. Expect him to tweet the same thing again a week from now.
posted by chemoboy at 12:36 PM on April 19, 2013 [1 favorite]


If Bell wants to apologize for the tweet, he should apologize for the actual tweet. Apologizing "for the timing" is a dickless cowardly waffling bullshit fauxpology and he is subsequently not-so-pleasantly invited to go fuck himself.
posted by rmd1023 at 12:36 PM on April 19, 2013 [5 favorites]


What kind if food did OP go to get? I would suggest subway, I could go for subway right about now.

Subway's still closed. Buses too.
posted by maryr at 12:36 PM on April 19, 2013 [1 favorite]


Pierce's most recent name for Schieffer was "Scipio Africanus embed Bob Schieffer". :-)
posted by Eyebeams at 12:36 PM on April 19, 2013 [8 favorites]


He is cowering with his twitter feed.
posted by Artw at 12:37 PM on April 19, 2013 [1 favorite]


Rush Limbaugh suggests that America is crazy to let all 7 billion people immigrate to the US, anyway. I have to agree. We have enough American on American violence already. Let's reform immigration so that foreigners can't randomly kill other foreigners in The United States of America. I love my fellow citizens with their locked and loaded AR-15's. But, Russians with crock pots, not so much love.
posted by breadbox at 12:37 PM on April 19, 2013 [1 favorite]


Am I supposed to be seeing something in the shape of the shadow?


Yes. The shadow forms the water around Boston. The pavement part matches the geography of Boston.
posted by Ghost Mode at 12:37 PM on April 19, 2013 [5 favorites]


I think a lot of this scrabbling speculation around their ethnicity, religion, affiliations and their mental health has been a constant search for "other". The notion that the guy next door could be plotting something as bad or worse while mowing the lawn and taking his kids to soccer without batting an eyelid is just too much to swallow.


Yeah I can see that. It's a lot easy if criminals look like criminals in some specific way and act in some specific way. A good many do.

Reality is a good many don't. Whether it's plotting something like this your general criminal activity people can be quite 'normal' and fit right in to whatever social groups they live within.

It is a scary thought.
posted by Jalliah at 12:37 PM on April 19, 2013


Whoa -- you guys also get a cell phone emergency alert from MEMA saying shelter still in effect? Didn't know my phone (nor MEMA) could do that...
posted by AwkwardPause at 12:38 PM on April 19, 2013 [1 favorite]




Windingo:

Shadow
Boston
posted by Ghost Mode at 12:39 PM on April 19, 2013 [2 favorites]


My preferred theory is that an evil alien super villain told them they had to do this or he would blow up the planet.

Otherwise... WHY. There's nothing "reassuring" to latch onto -- extremism, social isolation, mental illness. For god sakes, the kid said on twitter this summer that he wished he could apologize to kids he may have bullied when he was younger. I don't know that we will ever be able to sort out the whys, in the odd chance he's taken into custody alive.

(And what Jilder said).
posted by murfed13 at 12:39 PM on April 19, 2013


Great moments in journalism: CNN is now interviewing a non-English speaker in English.
posted by nicwolff at 12:40 PM on April 19, 2013 [7 favorites]


I believe Dartmouth was evac'ed several hours ago.
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 12:40 PM on April 19, 2013


NYRR and the NYPD reserve the right to search any bag at any time, both within and outside the baggage area.

Umm... yeah... the NYCLU is gonna be all over that.
posted by Jahaza at 12:41 PM on April 19, 2013 [2 favorites]


AwkwardPause, Sure did! Hearing my phone make the EBS noise was real comforting...
posted by Elementary Penguin at 12:41 PM on April 19, 2013


CBS' Bob Schieffer: "It's clear that these two brothers are jihadists of some sort."

At this point no news media person should be starting any sentence with 'It's clear.' It's not clear. Not clear at all.
posted by sweetkid at 12:41 PM on April 19, 2013 [9 favorites]


Great moments in journalism: CNN is now interviewing a non-English speaker in English.


The trick is to ask the questions REALLY REALLY LOUDLY
posted by griphus at 12:41 PM on April 19, 2013 [25 favorites]


One of my favorite responses so far is Jim Dowd responds to the attack. Fuck yeah, Boston.
This small city produced both Stephen J Gould and Whitey Bulger. This place gave us Leonard Nimoy and Mark Wahlberg. Southie and Cambridge. Brookline and Brockton. This place will kick the screaming piss out of you, come up with a cure for having the screaming piss kicked out of you, give it to you for free, then win a Nobel prize for it and then use the medallion to break your knuckles.
posted by rmd1023 at 12:41 PM on April 19, 2013 [49 favorites]


Whoa -- you guys also get a cell phone emergency alert from MEMA saying shelter still in effect? Didn't know my phone (nor MEMA) could do that...

I've heard about this in the context of bushfires here...local telephone exchanges & cell towers apparently have the ability to broadcast calls to every known device in the area.
posted by UbuRoivas at 12:41 PM on April 19, 2013




Damn near shit my pants...
posted by AwkwardPause at 12:42 PM on April 19, 2013


"Rush Limbaugh suggests that America is crazy to let all 7 billion people immigrate to the US, anyway. I have to agree. We have enough American on American violence already. Let's reform immigration so that foreigners can't randomly kill other foreigners in The United States of America. "

THEY TOOK OUR JOBS
posted by klangklangston at 12:42 PM on April 19, 2013 [17 favorites]


I think the "you don't know who you fucked with" stuff about Boston is a little weird now that we know these main suspects grew up here. They knew exactly who they were fucking with.

I mean Boston, fuck yeah, but...they were from Boston.
posted by sweetkid at 12:43 PM on April 19, 2013 [4 favorites]


Oh God WhiteSkull, I was so ready to believe that. You win again, Onion.
posted by WidgetAlley at 12:43 PM on April 19, 2013 [3 favorites]



THEY TOOK OUR JOBS


I think it's spelled JERBS
posted by sweetkid at 12:43 PM on April 19, 2013 [9 favorites]


Breadbox: at least one of them became a citizen which means he's committing 'American on American' violence.
posted by rmd1023 at 12:44 PM on April 19, 2013


Whoa -- you guys also get a cell phone emergency alert from MEMA saying shelter still in effect? Didn't know my phone (nor MEMA) could do that...

I've heard about this in the context of bushfires here...local telephone exchanges & cell towers apparently have the ability to broadcast calls to every known device in the area.

I started getting them in Texas for Amber Alerts about a month ago. I've gotten four or five since then and it completely freaks me out every time.
posted by Dojie at 12:44 PM on April 19, 2013


I agree with a lot of what's beings said and I think the speculation is premature, but I'm not ready to completely disregard the possible influences of religion and nationalism. Those two types of ideologies have been potent motivating forces for many so I don't see why we would disregard their possible importance. Really, though, we just need to wait while journalists and law enforcement personnel gather information.

(Yeah, the emergency cell phone alert thing is weird. I got one earlier this year, but I now can't remember why. There must have been something happening in Minneapolis, but it wasn't anythign like this.)
posted by Area Man at 12:45 PM on April 19, 2013


Whoa -- you guys also get a cell phone emergency alert from MEMA saying shelter still in effect? Didn't know my phone (nor MEMA) could do that...

My fiance and I just had the same reaction - we don't even have MA / Boston area codes, so it must be something about actual proximity to the city...
posted by CharlieSue at 12:45 PM on April 19, 2013


Let's reform immigration so that foreigners can't randomly kill other foreigners in The United States of America. "

THEY TOOK OUR JOBS

klangklangston, sometimes I don't know whether to favorite or flag you. This is one of those moments.
posted by corb at 12:45 PM on April 19, 2013 [3 favorites]


2004 profile of Tamerlan Tsarnaev in the Lowell, MA, newspaper, The Sun.
posted by BobbyVan at 12:46 PM on April 19, 2013 [3 favorites]


The don't mess with us rhetoric reeks of Courtesy of the Red, White, and Blue and similar distasteful post 9-11 revenge language. I also think it's a weirdly childish reaction to an event like this.
posted by murfed13 at 12:46 PM on April 19, 2013 [6 favorites]


so it must be something about actual proximity to the city...
Expecting erico to come and explain shortly
posted by shothotbot at 12:46 PM on April 19, 2013


"SAMHSA ‏@samhsagov Worry, confusion, frustration, or fear can be normal when sheltering in place. Call 1-800-985-5990 for Distress Helpline. #Watertown #Boston"
posted by Celsius1414 at 12:46 PM on April 19, 2013 [3 favorites]


NYRR and the NYPD reserve the right to search any bag at any time, both within and outside the baggage area.

You can't reserve rights you don't have to begin with.
posted by one more dead town's last parade at 12:46 PM on April 19, 2013 [8 favorites]


The don't mess with us rhetoric reeks of Courtesy of the Red, White, and Blue and similar distateful post 9-11 revenge language. I also think it's a weirdly childish reaction to an event like this

I agree.
posted by sweetkid at 12:47 PM on April 19, 2013 [2 favorites]


AwkwardPause: Damn near shit my pants...
The first time I got one of those alert messages, I leapt to my feet with such ferocity I scared the dogs so bad they wouldn't come out from under the bed for two days.
Dojie: I started getting them in Texas for Amber Alerts about a month ago. I've gotten four or five since then and it completely freaks me out every time.
You can turn off most of the alerts in the settings of the app for your phone. The only one you can't turn off is the "Presidential Emergency Alert" which, if you get that one you'll have much, much bigger problems to worry about.
posted by ob1quixote at 12:48 PM on April 19, 2013 [1 favorite]


Over the past three centuries we’ve taken on Imperial England, slavery and Krispy Kreeme. Note that given time, Boston wins every time.

Excellent.
posted by Slap*Happy at 12:48 PM on April 19, 2013 [3 favorites]


about actual proximity to the city...

Yeah, my friend in Winthrop didn't get it, so must be pretty targeted.
posted by AwkwardPause at 12:48 PM on April 19, 2013


ob1quixote: "The only one you can't turn off is the "Presidential Emergency Alert" which, if you get that one you'll have much, much bigger problems to worry about."

FEMA concentration camps, I assume.
posted by brundlefly at 12:49 PM on April 19, 2013 [4 favorites]


My fiance and I just had the same reaction - we don't even have MA / Boston area codes, so it must be something about actual proximity to the city...

If it's on a cell phone, could they just localize the announcement to particular cells and every phone in those cells would receive it?
posted by OmieWise at 12:49 PM on April 19, 2013 [1 favorite]


The notion that the guy next door could be plotting something as bad or worse while mowing the lawn and taking his kids to soccer without batting an eyelid is just too much to swallow.

So not too long after I had bought my first house I woke up at around 3am and wandered downstairs to get myself a glass of diet green tea from the refigerator. As I was walking through the livingroom I saw someone pulling up in the street out front, through my french doors. Thinking it odd someone would be out there at this time of night I went and watched them park. A young guy got out, he looked North African to me, which wasn't unusual because we have a few families from that part of the world in my neighborhood.

Somehow the guy noticed me standing there in the dark, looked at me, and then went to his house on the corner. I turned and went back to bed.

The next morning I heard about how someone had shot at the Marine Corps Museum in the middle of the night. I wondered about the guy I had seen parking his car. I thought to myself "Nahh, he probably just works nights or something."

A few weeks later there was some kind of security incident near the Pentagon. I didn't work near there so I just drove off to work. Later that day I was walking through the hall at work where we had a TV running one of the cable news stations. I saw a helicopter shot of what looked just like the park next to my house. Then the camera panned up and I could see my house and my street.

So anyway it turned out that my neighbor, the guy I had seen parking his car after shooting up the Marine Corps Museum, was this guy.
posted by smoothvirus at 12:49 PM on April 19, 2013 [11 favorites]


2004 profile of Tamerlan Tsarnaev in the Lowell, MA, newspaper, The Sun.

It's like The Fighter... but they brought Quentin Tarantino in on the rewrite.
posted by Jahaza at 12:49 PM on April 19, 2013


The NYTimes is reporting that UMass Dartmouth is being evacuated.

Oh hey that's one town over from where I am right now. Absolutely no weirdness here though. Boyfriend was going to come visit but he can't because of the lockdown-ish thing in Belmont/Watertown area. Wishing for a speedy resolution to this, for everyone.
posted by jessamyn at 12:49 PM on April 19, 2013 [4 favorites]


Hearing my phone make the EBS noise was real comforting

I freaked out a couple of days ago when mine (Nexus 4/CM10.1) did that for the monthly test. I'd never heard my phone make the EAS/EBS noise before. For an Ambert Alert last week it just used the normal text-message notification tone.
posted by mrbill at 12:50 PM on April 19, 2013


I think the "you don't know who you fucked with" stuff about Boston is a little weird
Not to mention, a teeny bit, ummm parochial?
posted by fullerine at 12:50 PM on April 19, 2013 [2 favorites]


it must be something about actual proximity to the city...

It has to do with which cell towers you're connecting to, which corresponds to geographical proximity as cell phones will typically connect to the closest tower (exception: towers which are saturated with connections already will redirect handsets to other towers).
posted by bookdragoness at 12:50 PM on April 19, 2013



I agree with a lot of what's beings said and I think the speculation is premature, but I'm not ready to completely disregard the possible influences of religion and nationalism. Those two types of ideologies have been potent motivating forces for many so I don't see why we would disregard their possible importance. Really, though, we just need to wait while journalists and law enforcement personnel gather information.


I wouldn't discount it either, but if those did have influence I don't think it's necessarily the type of influence that many (not here) seem to be desiring. Like they're part of some big international foreign terror plot to attack our freedoms' sort of thing. Sadly I don't think a lot of people are capable or willing to try to understand that sort of difference.
posted by Jalliah at 12:51 PM on April 19, 2013 [2 favorites]


The don't mess with us rhetoric reeks of Courtesy of the Red, White, and Blue and similar distateful post 9-11 revenge language.

C. S. Lewis Jr. says: "Don't Mess Around... With God's America!"
posted by scody at 12:51 PM on April 19, 2013 [2 favorites]


2004 profile of Tamerlan Tsarnaev in the Lowell, MA, newspaper, The Sun.

Ugh.

"I like the USA," said Tsarnaev. "America has a lot of jobs. That's something Russia doesn't have. You have a chance to make money here if you are willing to work."


[snip]

Tsarnaev's first love is music. He studied music at a school in Russia and plays the piano and violin.
posted by wensink at 12:51 PM on April 19, 2013


Yeah but if you're high and playing video games and there's a knock on the door.

"Dave's not here."
posted by ericb at 12:51 PM on April 19, 2013 [7 favorites]


CBS is reporting that the 7-11 holdup was unrelated to the bombing and may not have been perpetrated by either suspect.
posted by chemoboy at 12:52 PM on April 19, 2013


Also, CBS just moved on after that and no other mention was made to the source or what the deal was about all that.
posted by chemoboy at 12:53 PM on April 19, 2013


"I like the USA," said Tsarnaev. "America has a lot of jobs. That's something Russia doesn't have. You have a chance to make money here if you are willing to work."

Anyone else wondering if he found that a bit harder in recent years? Combine that with "he wanted to become an engineer" from the boxing photos and it starts to suggest a familiar story.
posted by knapah at 12:53 PM on April 19, 2013 [1 favorite]


The don't mess with us rhetoric reeks of Courtesy of the Red, White, and Blue and similar distateful post 9-11 revenge language.

Hm. I didn't think it rose to that level, but I think maybe I'm too close to the subject matter (having ties both to the wicked smart techie world and the Winter Hill Gang side of things).

Mostly I just found myself laughing quite literally out loud at some of the phrasing and descriptions of Boston's social landscape and the weird juxtapositions here. (and “Irish Alzheimer’s”- it’s when the only memories you have are grudges describes some of my relatives as they get older).

Sorry about that.
posted by rmd1023 at 12:53 PM on April 19, 2013 [2 favorites]


Yeah the DON'T FUCK WITH BOSTON/AMERICA/etc. reaction is a little unnerving just because that sort of nativism is always there with certain people, but when there's a crisis involving a perpetrator who, in some way, somehow, isn't from here, it comes out in force and everyone pats each other on the back for being a badass and keeping the homeland safe from these not-us people, and, just, gross.
posted by griphus at 12:55 PM on April 19, 2013 [17 favorites]


Here's my over the top theory... Both brothers are really close to their mother... She gets busted for shoplifting at Lords and Taylor and this combined with seething rage from the older brother causes the older brother to concoct a bomb plan... He then gets his brother involved either with or without the younger brother's support.

This is based on the mother's arrest and the proximity to a Lords and Taylor.
posted by drezdn at 12:55 PM on April 19, 2013 [1 favorite]


Anyone else wondering if he found that a bit harder in recent years? Combine that with "he wanted to become an engineer" from the boxing photos and it starts to suggest a familiar story.

Are there any other examples of Americans reacting similarly to the economic hardships of the last few years?
posted by BobbyVan at 12:56 PM on April 19, 2013


The don't mess with us rhetoric reeks of Courtesy of the Red, White, and Blue and similar distateful post 9-11 revenge language. I also think it's a weirdly childish reaction to an event like this

I'm guessing you're not from Boston? The "don't mess with us rhetoric" has been part of Boston's culture since as long as I can remember. You don't have to like it, but this isn't something new.
posted by oinopaponton at 12:56 PM on April 19, 2013 [4 favorites]


Mostly I just found myself laughing quite literally out loud at some of the phrasing and descriptions of Boston's social landscape and the weird juxtapositions here. (and “Irish Alzheimer’s”- it’s when the only memories you have are grudges describes some of my relatives as they get older).

Totally agree there is a difference between this type of thing (which is closer to a coping mechanism through humor) and just the general "don't fuck with us" scorched earth stuff.
posted by murfed13 at 12:56 PM on April 19, 2013


You can also throw in a dash of religion into that story if you want. This action would be consistent with an intense newer convert.
posted by drezdn at 12:56 PM on April 19, 2013 [1 favorite]


fullerine Yes, it's definitely being "parochial" to be distressed over a manhunt for a mass-casualty bomber in the densely populated urban area in which one lives.

Similarly, I have a parochial worldview because I'm concerned over my girlfriend's fever when I *should* be worried about the explosion of HIV/AIDS in India.
posted by Ghost Mode at 12:56 PM on April 19, 2013 [13 favorites]


brundlefly: ob1quixote: "The only one you can't turn off is the "Presidential Emergency Alert" which, if you get that one you'll have much, much bigger problems to worry about."

FEMA concentration camps, I assume.
Heh. I was thinking more nuclear war or giant meteor.
posted by ob1quixote at 12:56 PM on April 19, 2013


drezdn: "This is based on the mother's arrest and the proximity to a Lords and Taylor."

Well that might be good enough proof for CNN. Will they give you a byline for that?
posted by caution live frogs at 12:57 PM on April 19, 2013 [2 favorites]


NYT: "Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, who remains on the run, was spotted on [the UMass Dartmouth] campus earlier this week, according to students at the school."

"I'm a stress free kind of guy", posted on his (alleged) Twitter feed the day after the bombing.

Just bizarre.
posted by seemoreglass at 12:57 PM on April 19, 2013


Decriminalized. Smoke it if you got it beleaguered Massachussetsites!

I wonder if the 420 Smoke Out on the Common is still on for tomorrow. If so, I bet it's going to have quite a large turnout after this week.
posted by ericb at 12:58 PM on April 19, 2013


Will they give you a byline for that?

No, they'll just say it came from a "source connected to the investigation."
posted by The 10th Regiment of Foot at 12:58 PM on April 19, 2013 [6 favorites]


CNN: thanks to caution live frogs we now have independent confirmation of earlier claims by drezdn of motivation being family grudge against lord + taylor.
posted by hoople at 12:58 PM on April 19, 2013 [13 favorites]


Yeah, this isn't so much Toby Keith as an observation of the fact that Boston might as well have its state seal lovingly engraved on a massive chip the city collectively wears on its shoulder.
posted by FAMOUS MONSTER at 12:58 PM on April 19, 2013 [7 favorites]


I'm guessing you're not from Boston?

Not the city proper but close to it. Guess I missed the memo.
posted by murfed13 at 12:59 PM on April 19, 2013 [1 favorite]


If he evades until dark there are going to be an awful lot of very tired officers in the dark.
posted by sammyo at 12:59 PM on April 19, 2013 [1 favorite]


What states and cities can be successfully messed with? So many claim that you can't mess with them that maybe it would be easier to work on things from that end.
posted by Area Man at 12:59 PM on April 19, 2013 [33 favorites]


The don't mess with us rhetoric reeks of Courtesy of the Red, White, and Blue and similar distateful post 9-11 revenge language. I also think it's a weirdly childish reaction to an event like this

It would also be failing to learn from history, again.

The Soviets failed to control Afghanistan, just like every other invader previously, but that didn't stop America from having its own attempt at failure.

The Russians have likewise had a shit of a time trying to control Chechens, resulting in lovely incidents like the Beslan school massacre, or bombings on the Moscow metro.

The "you don't know who you fucked with" rhetoric is particularly ironic when Americans rarely know who they're fucking with, going right down to where to even find them on a map. The ongoing debacle in Iraq is another shining example of not knowing the enemy from a bar of soap.
posted by UbuRoivas at 1:00 PM on April 19, 2013 [5 favorites]


Are there any other examples of Americans reacting similarly to the economic hardships of the last few years?

2010 Austin Suicide Attack
posted by Saxon Kane at 1:00 PM on April 19, 2013 [1 favorite]


If he evades until dark there are going to be an awful lot of very tired officers in the dark.

They just did a shift change. Fresh people coming onto search now.
posted by The 10th Regiment of Foot at 1:00 PM on April 19, 2013


I was just saying that sometimes fear is a good motivator for keeping people alive. It may be mean, or cruel, to use it, but it sure beats the heartache of everyone involved if an innocent gets killed in something like this.

I understand this view and appreciate it, even if I'm not in complete agreement in this instance. I was just trying to raise the point that for the potential well-meaning purposes and good effects in using fear there are also potential bad purposes and effects in using fear, namely the relationship between institutional cultures that use fear to manipulate and the systemic problems in US policing regarding excessive force. Again, I understand the urgency of this situation and don't disagree with the officers stopping Wilson. I hope the current crisis will end soon without further injury and loss of life.
posted by audi alteram partem at 1:01 PM on April 19, 2013 [2 favorites]


From what I understand, everyone is free to mess with Drain, Oregon.
posted by Ouisch at 1:01 PM on April 19, 2013 [20 favorites]


I'm guessing you're not from Boston? The "don't mess with us rhetoric" has been part of Boston's culture since as long as I can remember. You don't have to like it, but this isn't something new.

I'm from Brooklyn, and we have that here too, and if someone I knew who came here at the age of 9 committed a crime, I would be equally weirded out if the reaction was DON'T FUCK WITH BROOKLYN, FOREIGNER.
posted by griphus at 1:01 PM on April 19, 2013 [3 favorites]


Well, you certainly can't mess with Texas; but that's really about not being allowed to litter there.
posted by el io at 1:01 PM on April 19, 2013 [6 favorites]


What states and cities can be successfully messed with?

My understanding is that its all right to mess with Detroit and Cleveland.
posted by Joey Michaels at 1:02 PM on April 19, 2013 [4 favorites]




What the heck are Bostonians doing in these locked-down neighborhoods with their dogs that have to go outside to do their business...?
posted by dukes909 at 1:02 PM on April 19, 2013 [1 favorite]


My fiance and I just had the same reaction - we don't even have MA / Boston area codes, so it must be something about actual proximity to the city...

Yeah, Chicago's been getting them the last few days because of the storms/flood alerts. One was at 4am the other night, and another one came yesterday afternoon. Quiet, open-floor office, and suddenly everyone's phone started blaring almost in tandem. Surreal.
posted by phunniemee at 1:02 PM on April 19, 2013


What states and cities can be successfully messed with? So many claim that you can't mess with them that maybe it would be easier to work on things from that end.

Savannah, Georgia surrendered to Sherman's March to the Seaand became a Christmas present to President Lincoln. However, we've sent thousands to early graves with our fried cooking, so be careful.

Now, bless your heart.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 1:03 PM on April 19, 2013 [7 favorites]


What the heck are Bostonians doing in these locked-down neighborhoods with their dogs that have to go outside to do their business...?
posted by dukes909 at 9:02 PM on April 19 [+] [!]


A friend of mine in Watertown who has a dog and who also spent his morning with 4 heavily armed cops outside his front door said he spoke with one of the officers and he was provided with an armed escort into his front yard for his dog to do its business.

I suspect that is not scalable but it does seem to indicate that the officers are being reasonable about such needs.

(FWIW when I lived in the city and hurricane Irene was meant to hit, I figured the dog would just have to use my shower floor and had planned around that. Perhaps others have similar backup plans in mind in Boston right now.)
posted by olinerd at 1:04 PM on April 19, 2013 [11 favorites]


griphus: it was posted on 4/17, well before their identities were known.
posted by rmd1023 at 1:04 PM on April 19, 2013


Slate: Photos From the Manhunt in Boston.
posted by ericb at 1:04 PM on April 19, 2013 [2 favorites]


I'm from Brooklyn, and we have that here too, and if someone I knew who came here at the age of 9 committed a crime, I would be equally weirded out if the reaction was DON'T FUCK WITH BROOKLYN, FOREIGNER.

That's great, but Boston is not Brooklyn, for better or for worse.
posted by oinopaponton at 1:04 PM on April 19, 2013



A friend of mine in Watertown who has a dog and who also spent his morning with 4 heavily armed cops outside his front door said he spoke with one of the officers and he was provided with an armed escort into his front yard for his dog to do its business.


Wow.
posted by sweetkid at 1:04 PM on April 19, 2013


Obviously, none of this is a joking matter, but the idea of a dog with armed guards to poop made me smile.
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 1:05 PM on April 19, 2013 [21 favorites]


A friend of mine in Watertown who has a dog and who also spent his morning with 4 heavily armed cops outside his front door said he spoke with one of the officers and he was provided with an armed escort into his front yard for his dog to do its business.

THAT is how you generate good-will and cooperation for a manhunt, right there. Armed escorts for beloved puppers.
posted by WidgetAlley at 1:05 PM on April 19, 2013 [3 favorites]


What states and cities can be successfully messed with?

If T-shirts are any indication, I guess you can mess with San Francisco?
posted by chemoboy at 1:06 PM on April 19, 2013 [1 favorite]


Some of radio chatter reflects those kinds of efforts ongoing. People needing to get places to attend to animals or service equipment, etc.
posted by snuffleupagus at 1:06 PM on April 19, 2013


A friend of mine in Watertown who has a dog and who also spent his morning with 4 heavily armed cops outside his front door said he spoke with one of the officers and he was provided with an armed escort into his front yard for his dog to do its business.

THAT is how you generate good-will and cooperation for a manhunt, right there. Armed escorts for beloved puppers.


That escort was likely so that the dog walker would not be shot by twitchy law enforcement.
posted by srboisvert at 1:07 PM on April 19, 2013


This is based on the mother's arrest and the proximity to a Lords and Taylor.

It's funnier if you say it in John King's voice.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 1:08 PM on April 19, 2013


I don't think it's a co-incidence that the Elvis Impersonator Ricin Guy has not roused nearly as much fear. Clearly that's what a mad poisoner looks like - writes whacked out websites and trots about dressed up as a man sixty years dead.

El Vez dresses up as a man who's 35 years dead, though, so he's OK, even if Hispanic.
posted by raysmj at 1:08 PM on April 19, 2013


The amount of cynicism in this thread is unbelievable...
posted by Fidel Cashflow at 1:09 PM on April 19, 2013


CBS' Bob Schieffer: "It's clear that these two brothers are jihadists of some sort."

At this point no news media person should be starting any sentence with 'It's clear.' It's not clear. Not clear at all.


The only thing clear is that we are witnessing the full meltdown of American journalism.
posted by double bubble at 1:09 PM on April 19, 2013 [25 favorites]


(avoiding the temptation of the edit window to add clarification to my comment - it was posted before the identities were known. I think if someone wrote that knowningly directed at specific known individuals instead of vague "unknown people of bad intent", I think it wouldn't be as funny to me...)
posted by rmd1023 at 1:10 PM on April 19, 2013


griphus: it was posted on 4/17, well before their identities were known.

I mean, sure, but the inherent assumption that it couldn't possibly be one of "us" -- and the insistence on continuing to frame it that way despite evidence to the contrary -- is what I'm talking about.

Anyway, I'm not about to make a giant stink over how people deal with grief and rage and helplessness. After 9/11, I heard pretty reasonable people say some pretty awful things that they would never repeat and are probably embarrassed by in retrospect. I don't really have any right to tell anyone dealing with this to watch their mouth.
posted by griphus at 1:10 PM on April 19, 2013 [1 favorite]


The amount of cynicism in this thread is unbelievable...

You should have seen the toddler-punching Axe-Me thread!
posted by The 10th Regiment of Foot at 1:10 PM on April 19, 2013 [1 favorite]


The only thing clear is that we are witnessing the full meltdown of American journalism.

...because of their excessive use of lurid hyperbole?
posted by jaduncan at 1:11 PM on April 19, 2013 [11 favorites]


That escort was likely so that the dog walker would not be shot by twitchy law enforcement.

Yes, which is good. I don't like lots of heavily armed guards in my area, but if there are going to be a bunch, I'd really, really hope some of them let their buddies know not to shoot me or my dog. I know the police escort was probably protection from their own-- but I'm glad they realize that freaking out and killing civilians is a risk and are taking steps to let people (and dogs) do essential business (business, ha) with appropriate protection.

I'm way more scared of a bunch of jumpy SWAT teams than I am of one crazy dude on the run, even if those SWAT teams are well-intentioned and I agree they should be there. So I'm glad they're not so arrogant that they aren't thinking "Hey, maybe we should protect the public from ourselves, too."
posted by WidgetAlley at 1:11 PM on April 19, 2013 [2 favorites]


I think the "you don't know who you fucked with" stuff about Boston is a little weird

Not to mention, a teeny bit, ummm parochial?


The Single Most Stunning Fact About the Boston Bombing
posted by mrgrimm at 1:12 PM on April 19, 2013 [7 favorites]


The 10th Regiment of Foot: The amount of cynicism in this thread is unbelievable...

You should have seen the toddler-punching Axe-Me thread!
This is useless without a link, and searching for "toddler punching" isn't helping.
posted by ob1quixote at 1:13 PM on April 19, 2013 [3 favorites]


The only thing clear is that we are witnessing the full meltdown of American journalism.

Sure, but in all seriousness, how is that different from most major, fast moving stories? It's incredibly hard to get the actual facts of a story as it's happening and it usually takes a protracted effort by skilled professionals to fill in the blanks. That usually can't happen in anything close to real time.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 1:13 PM on April 19, 2013




I'm from Brooklyn, and we have that here too, and if someone I knew who came here at the age of 9 committed a crime, I would be equally weirded out if the reaction was DON'T FUCK WITH BROOKLYN, FOREIGNER.

I think it would apply to the nativeborn, too. Basically, it's a "everyone who had a hand in this will be punished" rather than "Those people aren't us."
posted by corb at 1:14 PM on April 19, 2013 [1 favorite]


The only thing clear is that we are witnessing the full meltdown of American journalism.

The meltdown of American Journalism is not new. Our witnessing the meltdown in real time, now that's what is new.
posted by Fizz at 1:15 PM on April 19, 2013 [2 favorites]


I would be equally weirded out if the reaction was DON'T FUCK WITH BROOKLYN, FOREIGNER.

Well, later in the article he says
And worse yet for you, Boston is provincial in a way that makes Sicily look like Epcot. We don’t care if you’re going to school here, just moved from half a world away or are up for a long weekend. When you’re in Boston, you’re Boston. We watch each other’s backs, always have and always will.
If we can draw on the strength of provincialism to get through this hard time without falling in to blind xenophobia, that'd be good. "Fuck you, Chechnya" is stupid. "Fuck you, bomb throwers" sounds about right.
posted by benito.strauss at 1:16 PM on April 19, 2013 [3 favorites]


From the Slate article: I would love to know what kind of suit this guy is wearing. Some kind of bomb detonation suit? Deep sea diver? Astronaut on Planet Cabela's?
posted by inertia at 1:17 PM on April 19, 2013


Basically, it's a "everyone who had a hand in this will be punished" rather than "Those people aren't us."

Less Toby Keith, more "Higher and Higher" Statue of Liberty sequence in Ghostbusters II.
posted by jason_steakums at 1:17 PM on April 19, 2013 [2 favorites]


Obviously, none of this is a joking matter, but the idea of a dog with armed guards to poop made me smile.

When I was seven we got an after-hours tour of the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History, in the Gem & Minerals exhibit. A lot of jewelry with giant gems was passed around among the guests, but I didn't care because I had to go pee...and I was shy.

Eventually my mom got permission for me to go to the men's room, but an armed guard went with me and stood outside the stall. Thank goodness not to have Shy Bladder that night.
posted by wenestvedt at 1:19 PM on April 19, 2013 [1 favorite]



From the Slate article: I would love to know what kind of suit this guy is wearing. Some kind of bomb detonation suit? Deep sea diver? Astronaut on Planet Cabela's?



It's a bomb suit or maybe better bomb armor.
posted by Jalliah at 1:19 PM on April 19, 2013


@inertia - that guy is EOD. It's a bomb suit.
posted by smoothvirus at 1:19 PM on April 19, 2013


That suit is protective gear worn by the bomb disposal crews. Similar to this from the film The Hurt Locker.
posted by cmfletcher at 1:19 PM on April 19, 2013


The don't mess with us rhetoric reeks of Courtesy of the Red, White, and Blue ...

Well, today (April 19) is the anniversary of the start of the American Revolution with the battles of Concord and Lexington.

To quote Governor Deval Patrick from his speech at the interfaith service: "Massachusetts invented America."

And to quote President Obama: "[I]t should be pretty clear by now that they picked the wrong city to do it. Not here in Boston. Not here in Boston"
posted by ericb at 1:20 PM on April 19, 2013


I don't really have any right to tell anyone to watch their mouth.

Thank you. I'm sure it was the same for New Yorkers right after 9/11, but the amount of armchair speculation and blanket statements about people who live in or have loved ones in Boston from people who don't is kind of grating.
posted by oinopaponton at 1:20 PM on April 19, 2013 [1 favorite]


"I would love to know what kind of suit this guy is wearing. Some kind of bomb detonation suit? Deep sea diver? Astronaut on Planet Cabela's?"

It looks like it's his dad's.
posted by klangklangston at 1:20 PM on April 19, 2013 [9 favorites]


From @NBCNews: Seven (7) IEDs have been recovered in the searches so far, some in Watertown, some at the house in Cambridge.
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 1:22 PM on April 19, 2013


Does anyone have a good link explaining what the suits are made of and how they work? They look kinda like our fire gear but a LOT more hardcore and with body armor components. Would love to see a good lay-man's explanation.
posted by WidgetAlley at 1:22 PM on April 19, 2013


So, now our position is the media is doing a great job and they should keep it up? It's been evolving in this direction for a long time, but today's "reporting" has gone way overboard. They've abandoned the basic tenets of journalism and are just relaying anything and everything regardless of relevance, newsworthiness, facts, or corroboration. My junior high grape vine was more professional.
posted by double bubble at 1:22 PM on April 19, 2013 [3 favorites]


Less Toby Keith, more "Higher and Higher" Statue of Liberty sequence in Ghostbusters II.

Ten out of ten schoolchildren cannot point to Carpathia on a map.
posted by griphus at 1:23 PM on April 19, 2013 [9 favorites]


From the Slate article: I would love to know what kind of suit this guy is wearing.

"A bomb suit or a blast suit is a heavy suit of body armor designed to withstand the pressure released from a bomb and any projectiles the bomb may produce. It is usually worn by trained personnel attempting bomb disposal. In contrast to ballistic body armors, which usually focus on protecting the torso and head, a bomb suit must protect all parts of the body, since the dangers posed by a bomb's explosion affect the entire body. Current designs that are effective are generally very heavy, bulky and difficult to maneuver in. These drawbacks make it unsuitable for regular use in combat situations."
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 1:23 PM on April 19, 2013


The "don't mess with us rhetoric" has been part of Boston's culture since as long as I can remember.
Sigh... humans.
posted by smidgen at 1:23 PM on April 19, 2013 [4 favorites]


Ten out of ten schoolchildren cannot point to Carpathia on a map.

That's where Viggo Mortensen is from, right?
posted by zombieflanders at 1:23 PM on April 19, 2013 [14 favorites]


Typically well-selected In Focus showing incredible amounts of militarized-looking police on the manhunt.

Slate's Crime Blog is on the ground in Watertown. Choice quote:
Amar's house hadn't yet been searched, but he and another neighbor, who was sitting astride a bicycle, watched as cops went through the houses closer to Mount Auburn Street. "You know the philosopher Žižek?" the other man said, remembering that, after the September 11 attacks, Slavoj Žižek wrote a book called Welcome to the Desert of the Real, in which he observed that the actual consequences of attacks like the Boston Marathon bombing are far less significant than the symbolic consequences. "In the end, three people died because of the bombing," the neighbor noted. "But the real result is that we become acclimated to stuff like this."
Rick Perlstein about this fucking week- "Our Politics of Fear".
Terror shatters us here precisely because ours is not a terrifying place compared to so much of the rest of the world. And also not really an objectively terrifying time, compared other periods in the American past: for instance, Christmastime, 1975, when an explosion equivalent to twenty-five sticks of dynamite exploded in a baggage claim area, leaving severed heads and other body parts scattered among some two dozen corpses; no one ever claimed responsibility; no one ever was caught; but pretty much, the event was forgotten, life went on, and no one anywhere said "everything changed."

A less narcissistic time, perhaps. Not now. Now, we let trauma consume us. Now, our desperate longing to know—to find easy, immediate answers—confines us, makes us frantic, reduces us to our basest cognitive instincts.
(pretty sure that's not meant to disparage anybody who, you know, is inside there staying away from windows right now, more about the rest of the internet and everybody...)

Apologies if any of these have already been linked, it's a mighty big thread...
posted by hap_hazard at 1:23 PM on April 19, 2013 [28 favorites]



Whelp as a foreigner my impressions of Boston, gathered from whatever cultural morass I've come across is that it's a tough, bad ass sort of city but in sort of classy way that I can only describe as "Bostinian'. It has it's own unique descriptor that doesn't fit with any other American city.

I didn't get rah, rah, red white and blue from that piece at all. It fit quite well with the mythos I have about the city.
posted by Jalliah at 1:25 PM on April 19, 2013


Thank you. I'm sure it was the same for New Yorkers right after 9/11, but the amount of armchair speculation and blanket statements about people who live in or have loved ones in Boston from people who don't is kind of grating.

Just FYI- like I said, from outside of Boston. Lived there for a few years. Walked by the bomb sites a billion times. Have friends there as we speak. Not like I need permission to have an opinion- but not all Bostonians have exactly the same view point. As griphus said, I'll let you react in your own way. But this isn't just outside critics who don't understand.
posted by murfed13 at 1:26 PM on April 19, 2013 [1 favorite]


roomthreeseventeen: "Toilets along the course will be located only at mile 2."

Holy, uh, shit. That's pretty much a race-ruiner for someone with a cranky colon.
posted by notsnot at 1:26 PM on April 19, 2013 [1 favorite]


Thank you. I'm sure it was the same for New Yorkers right after 9/11, but the amount of armchair speculation and blanket statements about people who live in or have loved ones in Boston from people who don't is kind of grating.

"This group I'm not part of has views that I imagine are helpfully similar to the views I have for the purposes of my comment! Also, my black friend said that strerotypical generalisations are OK and not just essentially mansplaining people's own culture to them."
posted by jaduncan at 1:27 PM on April 19, 2013 [2 favorites]


They've abandoned the basic tenets of journalism and are just relaying anything and everything regardless of relevance, newsworthiness, facts, or corroboration. My junior high grape vine was more professional.

They'll take our 24-hour news cycle OUT OF MY COLD, DEAD HANDS
posted by scody at 1:27 PM on April 19, 2013 [2 favorites]


I was thinking yesterday - how would the Kennedy assassination have played out in these times? Imagine the avalanche of photos, videos, eyewitness tweets and blog posts.

It's during events like this that I think the internet has made us smarter and dumber at the same time.
posted by davebush at 1:28 PM on April 19, 2013 [4 favorites]


"We're not trying to other people and you'd know that if you weren't an other!" (kidding!)
posted by jason_steakums at 1:29 PM on April 19, 2013


how would the Kennedy assassination have played out in these times?

We would not be arguing about lone gunmen or grassy knolls 49 years later, that's what.
posted by ambrosia at 1:30 PM on April 19, 2013 [10 favorites]


Thanks guys! I don't know why, but those bomb suits look kind of silly to me, like I just want someone to stand next to me wearing one and make robot sounds...

....that's probably just me, right?

I think they look kind of like the snowsuits you wear when you are a little kid, which as soon as you put them on you ALWAYS had to pee. I hope, among other things, that all the bomb suit wearing folks today do not have that problem.
posted by inertia at 1:30 PM on April 19, 2013


They'll take our 24-hour news cycle OUT OF MY COLD, DEAD HANDS

Well, I didn't say it wasn't highly entertaining. It's way better than Survivor. Not quite as good as Amazing Race.
posted by double bubble at 1:31 PM on April 19, 2013


They'll take our 24-hour news cycle OUT OF MY COLD, DEAD HANDS


This reminds me that I joked last night that this week has been incredible at testing my faith in the first two amendments of our Constitution.

Weirdly, I woke up this morning, and there was a whole fourth amendment issue happening too. The Constitution is a living document.
posted by MCMikeNamara at 1:31 PM on April 19, 2013 [4 favorites]


"This group I'm not part of has views that I imagine are helpfully similar to the views I have for the purposes of my comment! Also, my black friend said that strerotypical generalisations are OK and not just essentially mansplaining people's own culture to them."

Do you mean "a blanket statement was made about New Yorkers by an outsider, as an attempt to say that people shouldn't make blanket statements about Bostonians from outside"?
posted by UbuRoivas at 1:32 PM on April 19, 2013


I hope, among other things, that all the bomb suit wearing folks today do not have that problem.

"This is a poopie suit."
posted by one more dead town's last parade at 1:33 PM on April 19, 2013 [5 favorites]


This reminds me that I joked last night that this week has been incredible at testing my faith in the first two amendments of our Constitution.

Which explains why we can't actually take the 24-hour news cycle out back and shoot it for the general good of civilization, alas.
posted by scody at 1:33 PM on April 19, 2013 [5 favorites]


those bomb suits look kind of silly to me, like I just want someone to stand next to me wearing one and make robot sounds...

You mean the suit isn't connected to Daft Punk's new single? Hunh.
posted by benito.strauss at 1:33 PM on April 19, 2013 [1 favorite]


We would not be arguing about lone gunmen or grassy knolls 49 years later, that's what.

Considering the popularity of "Loose Change," I think we would.
posted by drezdn at 1:34 PM on April 19, 2013 [1 favorite]


Nothing about this makes any sense. The 19-year old's Twitter and personal accounts are pretty much that of any old bro. Yet somehow he evades BPD/FBI/SWAT teams for over 12 hours? Breaks into a series of cars, and somehow hotwires them, drives them around? Makes a series of bombs and throws them out the window?

Either the kid is a mastermind and has the perfect alibi and disguises himself with pitch-perfect '19-year-old-kid' social media accounts and by maintaining good friendly relationships with friends. OR Occam's Razor says that the younger brother isn't fully involved, is scared shitless and is running for his life, having accidentally taken part in something larger, possibly instigated by his older brother.

My instinct or gut reaction is that the two brothers were involved in something larger. The older brother was tasked with carrying this out, or dropping the bags off, and that the younger brother aided the older brother unknowingly. Perhaps he didn't know what was in the bags; perhaps he was convinced by the older brother. Maybe it was pitched as a "swap" - "help me carry these bags; we're going to leave them here so someone is going to pick them up."Or maybe he was convinced.

A 19-year old is an adult, but young enough to be malleable and convinced, especially when it comes to friendly figures such as your older brother. But the fact that the younger kid continues to escape, to me, and has the resources to eat/sleep/find a place to use the bathroom/charge phones/etc, means that there's another entity or group behind this, such as a local group of right-wing fanatics, or even one figurehead.
posted by suedehead at 1:34 PM on April 19, 2013 [12 favorites]


This reminds me that I joked last night that this week has been incredible at testing my faith in the first two amendments of our Constitution.
I think this week's going to test the fourth, too.
posted by SpecialK at 1:34 PM on April 19, 2013 [2 favorites]


double bubble: "So, now our position is the media is doing a great job and they should keep it up? It's been evolving in this direction for a long time, but today's "reporting" has gone way overboard. They've abandoned the basic tenets of journalism and are just relaying anything and everything regardless of relevance, newsworthiness, facts, or corroboration. My junior high grape vine was more professional."

Which is of course what they do whenever there is any kind of complicated "breaking news" event.
posted by chavenet at 1:35 PM on April 19, 2013


The Third Amendment will, however, remain untested.
posted by Area Man at 1:35 PM on April 19, 2013 [3 favorites]


My instinct or gut reaction is that the two brothers were involved in something larger. The older brother was tasked with carrying this out, or dropping the bags off, and that the younger brother aided the older brother unknowingly. Perhaps he didn't know what was in the bags; perhaps he was convinced by the older brother. Maybe it was pitched as a "swap" - "help me carry these bags; we're going to leave them here so someone is going to pick them up."Or maybe he was convinced

yeah. I think it's possible the other kid didn't know.
posted by sweetkid at 1:36 PM on April 19, 2013 [1 favorite]


those bomb suits look kind of silly to me, like I just want someone to stand next to me wearing one and make robot sounds...

You mean the suit isn't connected to Daft Punk's new single? Hunh.


The most misguided attempt at viral marketing since that rash that spelled out NIKE.
posted by griphus at 1:36 PM on April 19, 2013 [4 favorites]


Damn straight, if anyone is thinking of messing with Brooklyn you better think again. We will not rest until we find you, open an adorable brunch place on your block, and make you a frittata with locally grown free range eggs and tell you all about our plans for the weekend and that awesome new band we saw.
posted by Ad hominem at 1:37 PM on April 19, 2013 [32 favorites]


21st amendment greatly exercised, however
posted by MysticMCJ at 1:37 PM on April 19, 2013 [13 favorites]


the younger kid continues to escape, to me, and has the resources to eat/sleep/find a place to use the bathroom/charge phones/etc
I don't think this is the case. I think the younger kid went to ground somewhere ... possibly under a bush in a park somewhere, god only knows where else ... and is staying put for as long as he can to try to save his own hide. Either that, or he's slipped the dragnet on his own by looking like any old dudebro ... totally possible if you don't make any mistakes and/or are lucky.
posted by SpecialK at 1:37 PM on April 19, 2013 [3 favorites]


Anyone can print accurate information, but New York Post always follows the four W's of journalism: who, whatever, and why wait." -- Stephen Colbert
posted by ericb at 1:37 PM on April 19, 2013 [19 favorites]


I thought that in Brooklyn, they'd just raise your rent until you left.
posted by klangklangston at 1:38 PM on April 19, 2013 [9 favorites]


Decriminalized. Smoke it if you got it beleaguered Massachussetsites!

Is "beleaguered Massachussetsites" what the cops ask you to coherently say to determine if you are stoned or not?

Also: probably scores an absolute ton at scrabble.
posted by Wordshore at 1:38 PM on April 19, 2013 [4 favorites]


I don't know why, but those bomb suits look kind of silly to me...

They frighten me, because the hands are uncovered, for obvious reasons. So it's possible to survive a bomb explosion but completely lose both of your hands. Terrifying thought.

Nothing about this makes any sense. The 19-year old's Twitter and personal accounts are pretty much that of any old bro. Yet somehow he evades BPD/FBI/SWAT teams for over 12 hours?

It's probably possible to find out typical police tactics and responses and develop plans to evade them. It's my understanding, which hasn't been confirmed, that he escaped by driving an SUV over his brother's dead body, towards the police officers, which scattered them.

From there, it's probably possible for a determined person to evade capture for a while, especially they had a getaway plan in place. It's a big city, with plenty of places for a single body to hide for a while, when you've grown up there. Still, it'll be interesting to read the account of what actually happened once the facts are known.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 1:38 PM on April 19, 2013


The Third Amendment will, however, remain untested.

Every year at the annual Bill of Rights party, the third amendment sits alone in the corner wearing its "most outdated amendment" sash, mumbling bitterly about how even the repealed amendments get more respect.
posted by Joey Michaels at 1:38 PM on April 19, 2013 [2 favorites]


SassHat:
"The Onion:

BREAKING: No News Breaking

BREAKING: Has The Word ‘Breaking’ Lost All Its Meaning?

BREAKING: Still Nothing

BREAKING: Can Anyone Ever Truly Know Anything? What Is The Truth?

BREAKING: We Might Be Doing A Bad Job

BREAKING: Do You Think We’re Doing A Good Job?
"
Latest headline:

BREAKING: We're Doing A Bad Job
posted by ocherdraco at 1:38 PM on April 19, 2013 [11 favorites]


Either that, or he's slipped the dragnet on his own by looking like any old dudebro ... totally possible if you don't make any mistakes and/or are lucky.

Or - as someone posited upthread - he managed to escape in the wee hours of the morning before the full-on dragnet even started. I really wouldn't be shocked if he's no longer in the Boston area.
posted by breakin' the law at 1:39 PM on April 19, 2013


But the fact that the younger kid continues to escape, to me, and has the resources to eat/sleep/find a place to use the bathroom/charge phones/etc, means that there's another entity or group behind this, such as a local group of right-wing fanatics, or even one figurehead.

Or he could just be dead.
posted by desjardins at 1:39 PM on April 19, 2013 [13 favorites]


Nothing about this makes any sense. The 19-year old's Twitter and personal accounts are pretty much that of any old bro. Yet somehow he evades BPD/FBI/SWAT teams for over 12 hours? Breaks into a series of cars, and somehow hotwires them, drives them around? Makes a series of bombs and throws them out the window?

I'd wager that the vast majority of bomb making and hot wiring in this country is carried out by19 year olds and younger; doesn't seem that crazy to me.
posted by Bulgaroktonos at 1:40 PM on April 19, 2013 [2 favorites]


Yet somehow he evades BPD/FBI/SWAT teams for over 12 hours? Breaks into a series of cars, and somehow hotwires them, drives them around? Makes a series of bombs and throws them out the window?

I don't think any of this really requires a masterful criminal mind. Especially evading the police for 12 hours... even if he is somehow still in Boston, he could be hiding in a dumpster or something and be totally undetectable. Now, give it a week and I'll be more impressed...
posted by showbiz_liz at 1:40 PM on April 19, 2013 [1 favorite]


Typically well-selected In Focus showing incredible amounts of militarized-looking police on the manhunt.

Is it wrong to be a little amused that a 19-year-old with nothing is eluding (tens of?) thousands cops armed to the teeth.

This reminds me that I joked last night that this week has been incredible at testing my faith in the first two amendments of our Constitution.

The crackdown in Boston pretty much kills the 2nd amendment argument that we need firearms to protect us from the government.

Your well-regulated militia will not kick anyone's ass

The 19-year old's Twitter and personal accounts are pretty much that of any old bro. Yet somehow he evades BPD/FBI/SWAT teams for over 12 hours?

I dunno. Stash yourself at the bottom of a dumpster and wait it out? That's my first thought.
posted by mrgrimm at 1:41 PM on April 19, 2013 [3 favorites]


We would not be arguing about lone gunmen or grassy knolls 49 years later, that's what.

oh... hahahaha hehehe *weeeze*.

I'll be sure to pass that along to the folks convinced 911 was an inside job, Paul Welstone was killed by the Bush Admin, Newton was carried out by the Israeli Secret Service, immunizations cause autism, the earth is flat and we never made it to the moon. I'm sure this age of reason, technology hath bestowed upon us will enlighten their oh so darkened minds.
posted by edgeways at 1:41 PM on April 19, 2013 [2 favorites]


Or - as someone posited upthread - he managed to escape in the wee hours of the morning before the full-on dragnet even started.

Full on dragnet started shortly after the 7-11 robbery, murder of the MIT police officer.

It's really hard to search houses/an urban area thoroughly.
posted by drezdn at 1:42 PM on April 19, 2013


If we are taking the Occam's Razor approach, he's either dead or under a bush. They clearly did not have escape plans given that it didn't dawn on them until after the FBI presser last night that they would need actual cash and a car not registered in their names. No one is (intentionally) hiding this guy.
posted by murfed13 at 1:42 PM on April 19, 2013 [1 favorite]


I haven't been able to catch up, but were there retractions and/or apologies for outing Tripathi?

Yes. More details about the fiasco.

I can't say I was surprised by the outpouring of xenophobic hatred against Tripathi and Mulugeta, Tripathi's family, and two whole ethnic groups based on hearsay. But I'm disappointed by the social media crowd who screwed up royally last night and still managed to brainwash themselves and everyone else with the "Official: Social > News Media!" meme.

I watched this extraordinary event play out on social media, mostly Twitter. Beyond anxiety on behalf of the affected area's residents, what struck me the hardest was not the xenophobia or the insipid left-vs-right blame game. It was the thoughtless worship of crowdsourcing in the face of one of its gravest fuckups.
posted by fatehunter at 1:42 PM on April 19, 2013 [11 favorites]


Either that, or he's slipped the dragnet on his own by looking like any old dudebro ... totally possible if you don't make any mistakes and/or are lucky.

Put him in a deep-V-neck T-shirt, American Apparel hoody, ironic retro vinyl jacket and aviator shades and he'd blend into any hipster bar.
posted by acb at 1:43 PM on April 19, 2013


I don't think any of this really requires a masterful criminal mind. Especially evading the police for 12 hours... even if he is somehow still in Boston, he could be hiding in a dumpster or something and be totally undetectable. Now, give it a week and I'll be more impressed...

Yeah, I think people often grossly overestimate the efficiency, resources & investigative powers of the police. It's not exactly like CSI or Person of Interest.

It's extremely likely they'll find the guy eventually; just not necessarily within minutes or hours.
posted by UbuRoivas at 1:45 PM on April 19, 2013 [5 favorites]


I saw the Sunil Tripathi thing on Facebook last night (when I was a little drunk) and was furious. Someone posted "this is the guy, this is him."
posted by sweetkid at 1:46 PM on April 19, 2013


Put him in a deep-V-neck T-shirt, American Apparel hoody, ironic retro vinyl jacket and aviator shades and he'd blend into any hipster bar.

Except for the fact that he looks just like that bomber dude that all the hipsters have seen a hundred times on the TV and web.
posted by Unified Theory at 1:47 PM on April 19, 2013


Helpful color-coded map of lockdown areas in Boston:
Orange: Stay Indoors/Business Closed.

Red: Stay Indoors/Business Closed/No Vehicle Traffic Allowed.

Green: Staht Drinking!
posted by ericb at 1:47 PM on April 19, 2013 [7 favorites]


I don't think they're going to catch this guy today unless the police get a lucky break or he does something stupid.

The time to catch Suspect #2 was last night. They had him, and he got away. Now with every hour that passes, his location is becoming less certain and the likelihood of finding him goes down. If he was going to confront the police and go out with a blaze of glory, he would have done it last night, so it seems reasonable to assume that he's either hiding or actively trying to escape. In the short term, he has a large geographic area to hide in (basically anywhere that can be reached by car or train in a single night), so it's unlikely he'll be found unless they catch a lucky break like a witness identification.

In the long term Suspect #2's chances are much slimmer, because his likely face and name are all over the news. Once he evades the immediate police cordon, he has to escape with whatever assets he has on him, or whatever he can steal. (And as we've seen, committing crimes is a red flag that alerts the police to his location.) But where can he go? Any relatives or friends are going to be under surveillance. He can't take a greyhound or a plane. He's got no good long term options.

So he might hide for a day or even multiple days, then get caught when he makes a mistake or makes a final stand of some sort. It probably depends upon how frightened or confused he is right now.
posted by Kevin Street at 1:47 PM on April 19, 2013


Or he could just be dead.

yeah seriously.. if we are speculating about the genius kid, might as well ponder that he could have jumped in a dumpster and bled out from possible wounds sustained from last night.

But seriously? 12-14 hours when the people looking for you are trying to not get shot or have other people shot? Not exactly gold level achievement unlocked territory.

Dude is young, been awake for how long (if alive), face plastered on all media outlets, likely out of food, and even if does have some $ it will be hard to spend it. Lets not expect CSI speed developments. I know attention spans are difficult to maintain and it's exhausting, especially when fed by the slavering cable channels, but give it a few more days.
posted by edgeways at 1:48 PM on April 19, 2013


"The only one you can't turn off is the "Presidential Emergency Alert" which, if you get that one you'll have much, much bigger problems to worry about."

FEMA concentration camps, I assume."

Heh. I was thinking more nuclear war or giant meteor.


Oh my god. If the president called me up to tell me that a giant meteor was coming towards me I would (to steal a phrase) shit my leg. There is not much "responding" you can do in the case of a giant meteor hurtling toward you-- staying indoors hardly seems appropriate.

those bomb suits look kind of silly to me, like I just want someone to stand next to me wearing one and make robot sounds...


I think we are conditioned to find giant, inflated humonoids funny a la Staypuff Marshmallow man and Tellytubbies.
posted by Secret Life of Gravy at 1:48 PM on April 19, 2013 [1 favorite]


The other thing is: if the kid shaved his head, dyed his eyebrows, and changed his clothes, I'm not sure anyone would be able to recognize him.
posted by corb at 1:48 PM on April 19, 2013 [4 favorites]


When they were talking about searching the banks of the Charles early on the event, I wondered about suicide, but I thought that was likely for Dorner and he was just sitting pat instead. I wonder what they are doing about houses where there was no one home to allow them in or the residents refused. Are they coming back with search warrants? I'm not a big fan of big random sweep search warrants, but at the same time if you only check houses where you are allowed in, the search could easily move right past him.
posted by tavella at 1:49 PM on April 19, 2013


There's a touching new Ask Amy up where she talks a bit about using the Internet to process this week's events.
posted by yarrow at 1:49 PM on April 19, 2013


That, or dressed as a woman.

Meanwhile, where are the Boondock Saints when you need em?
posted by St. Alia of the Bunnies at 1:49 PM on April 19, 2013


Except for the fact that he looks just like that bomber dude that all the hipsters have seen a hundred times on the TV and web.

If he was standing right in front of me I'm not sure I'd recognize him. Certainly not well enough to say "IT'S HIM, GRAB HIM!" Of course, he's probably exhausted, unwashed and possibly injured, but he doesn't really look ALL THAT distinctive.
posted by showbiz_liz at 1:50 PM on April 19, 2013


Doesn't really explain why they decided to rob a 7-11 a few blocks away from where they lived after their photos were out but before they were identified. My guess is that they were just idiots who didn't think things through very well.

I initially had the same thought, but my guess is they saw themselves in the video, freaked out, figured they needed some cash to skip town and that's what they came up with. Still not very well-planned, but it makes some sense.


Even if they thought that robbing a 7-11 would be a good way to get cash without getting caught (it's really not for a variety of reasons), they could have at least gotten as far away from Boston as possible before doing it. They were extremely bad at being criminals on the run, which would make sense if they had never committed a crime before and weren't part of any criminal organization.
posted by burnmp3s at 1:50 PM on April 19, 2013 [2 favorites]


didn't they say the 7-11 now seems unrelated?
posted by sweetkid at 1:50 PM on April 19, 2013 [1 favorite]


Yeah, it's like they didn't know that calling 7-11s "Stop and Robs" is facetious.
posted by klangklangston at 1:51 PM on April 19, 2013 [1 favorite]


They're saying now, though, that they're not the ones who robbed the 7-11.
posted by mudpuppie at 1:51 PM on April 19, 2013


So if they didn't rob the 7-11, when/how did the older brother die?
posted by showbiz_liz at 1:52 PM on April 19, 2013


I thought the security cam still from last night of Suspect #2 was from that 7-11, though.
posted by jason_steakums at 1:52 PM on April 19, 2013


sweetkid: "I saw the Sunil Tripathi thing on Facebook last night (when I was a little drunk) and was furious. Someone posted "this is the guy, this is him.""

I saw several tweets last night from people admonishing various "mainstream media" sources for not naming the suspects when they were clearly Tripathi and Mulugeta. It was pretty pathetic.
posted by brundlefly at 1:52 PM on April 19, 2013


ericb: that map image seems to have been updated on boston.com to include more "stay inside" and less "staht drinkin!"
posted by ghostbikes at 1:52 PM on April 19, 2013


I saw the Sunil Tripathi thing on Facebook last night (when I was a little drunk) and was furious. Someone posted "this is the guy, this is him."

I could swear that the Boston Globe confirmed in a tweet that he was the suspect. Wasn't that what set everyone off last night? If I'm right, I think that makes the Globe a worse offender than CNN, which at least hasn't ruined anyone's life (that I know of) with its coverage of these incidents.
posted by eugenen at 1:53 PM on April 19, 2013


They're saying now, though, that they're not the ones who robbed the 7-11.

Damn, this now puts them back on the Criminal Mastermind / Part of Highly Organised Terror Group list again.

Stop flip-flopping on me all the time, reality!
posted by UbuRoivas at 1:53 PM on April 19, 2013


PRI says the FBI provided a surveillance photo from 7-11. Article was published Friday at 3:43 AM.
Dzhokhar A. Tsarnaev, pictured in a surveillance photo from a 7-11, is believed to be one of the two suspects in the Boston Marathon attack. (Photo courtesy of the FBI.)
posted by Nonsteroidal Anti-Inflammatory Drug at 1:54 PM on April 19, 2013


"They" have been saying the 7-11 is unrelated for hours. Even last night, it was known that the 7-11 was a three-man robbery, and that the bombers filled up (and paid) at a Shell. But, hey, idle and uninformed speculation is de riguer today.
posted by five fresh fish at 1:54 PM on April 19, 2013 [2 favorites]


I thought the security cam still from last night of Suspect #2 was from that 7-11, though

It was said they bought gas so maybe that's where the cam picture came from
posted by Jalliah at 1:55 PM on April 19, 2013


They're saying now, though, that they're not the ones who robbed the 7-11.

Yeah, we don't know for sure what happened, so it's premature to say it's weird that one has evaded capture for over X hours.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 1:55 PM on April 19, 2013


how/why did they go to MIT and shoot the cop? I missed that part, being asleep.
posted by sweetkid at 1:55 PM on April 19, 2013


The Boston Globe put out the following tweet about 40 minutes ago: "BREAKING NEWS: Law enforcement officials say desperate Marathon bombing suspect ran over his own wounded brother as he fled police."
posted by Area Man at 1:55 PM on April 19, 2013


Or he could just be dead.

If he's dead and we've been kept indoors on the only nice day this year because of it, I will kick his corpse in the face.
posted by sonika at 1:56 PM on April 19, 2013 [10 favorites]


They frighten me, because the hands are uncovered, for obvious reasons. So it's possible to survive a bomb explosion but completely lose both of your hands. Terrifying thought.

They always frightened me too for that very reason. But I think those suits are designed for high-explosives in which the pressure wave is what kills and not necessarily the shrapnel.

Can someone who is more familiar with bomb physics and/or trauma chime in here? Because I still am not convinced that you aren't just sacrificing your hands (and feet) to save your heart.

staying indoors hardly seems appropriate.

I figured I would always find my high school girlfriend and ride a motorbike up a hill or make peace with my dad on a beach.
posted by chemoboy at 1:56 PM on April 19, 2013 [1 favorite]


The Boston Marathon bombing suspect was on the run Friday afternoon as officials revealed he and his brother exchanged 200 rounds with police during a stunning firefight and left seven homemade explosives behind.*
posted by ericb at 1:56 PM on April 19, 2013


Even last night, it was known that the 7-11 was a three-man robbery

So there were actually 3 of them? The two on the run are possibly disguising themselves as a husband and wife.
posted by UbuRoivas at 1:56 PM on April 19, 2013




FFS,

Drudge now has jihad, written in Arabic, as the main image on the front of the Drudge Report.

The american right hates muslims.
posted by MisantropicPainforest at 1:56 PM on April 19, 2013 [1 favorite]


This, from the NYT, seems to be the most solid chronology.
posted by neroli at 1:56 PM on April 19, 2013 [4 favorites]


Anyone else feel drained and depleted from this? Maybe it's the late night, but I keep telling myself to step away from this ... but can't.

I find this event (as BobbyVan stated in the other thread) has a crazy Delilloesque aspect and, as a "media event," it feels to me like a weird combination of 9/11, the Columbine massacre and the Andrew Cunanan killing spree.
posted by Unified Theory at 1:57 PM on April 19, 2013 [3 favorites]


I figured I would always find my high school girlfriend and ride a motorbike up a hill or make peace with my dad on a beach.

Why wait for catastrophe?
posted by MysticMCJ at 1:57 PM on April 19, 2013 [5 favorites]


In the long term Suspect #2's chances are much slimmer, because his likely face and name are all over the news. Once he evades the immediate police cordon, he has to escape with whatever assets he has on him, or whatever he can steal. (And as we've seen, committing crimes is a red flag that alerts the police to his location.) But where can he go? Any relatives or friends are going to be under surveillance. He can't take a greyhound or a plane. He's got no good long term options.

Eric Rudolph (Olympic Park bomber) evaded the FBI for 5 years by hiding in the mountains on North Carolina, however I haven't seen any evidence that Tsarnaev is capable of such a thing. Still, 5 years! That's a sobering thought.
posted by Secret Life of Gravy at 1:57 PM on April 19, 2013 [2 favorites]




If he's dead and we've been kept indoors on the only nice day this year because of it, I will kick his corpse in the face.

It would be an interesting twist on All Summer in a Day.
posted by never used baby shoes at 1:58 PM on April 19, 2013 [2 favorites]


A friend of mine in Watertown who has a dog and who also spent his morning with 4 heavily armed cops outside his front door said he spoke with one of the officers and he was provided with an armed escort into his front yard for his dog to do its business.

Photo.
posted by ericb at 1:58 PM on April 19, 2013 [10 favorites]


"I saw the Sunil Tripathi thing on Facebook last night (when I was a little drunk) and was furious. Someone posted "this is the guy, this is him.""

There was a period of about 1-2 hours in MeFi Chat last night that was profoundly reprehensible and unsettling. I'm just glad the shitshow wasn't visible to the entire Tubes.
posted by FelliniBlank at 1:59 PM on April 19, 2013


It was said they bought gas so maybe that's where the cam picture came from

That would make absolutely no sense based on this map. The police officer was shot right next to where the 7-11 was, and the SUV they carjacked was in a straight line from the 7-11 and the cop.
posted by burnmp3s at 1:59 PM on April 19, 2013


Ha, that's not the friend in question, ericb, but I'm glad to see it's a more widespread phenomenon!
posted by olinerd at 1:59 PM on April 19, 2013


Shut up, Lindsay.
posted by benito.strauss at 2:00 PM on April 19, 2013 [2 favorites]


Senator Lindsey Graham says the guy should be treated as an enemy combatant.

Lindsey Graham may be many things, but he does not appear to be someone who understands U.S. law.
posted by one more dead town's last parade at 2:01 PM on April 19, 2013 [14 favorites]


Senator Lindsey Graham says the guy should be treated as an enemy combatant

Graham was one of the Senators that voted against the Violence Against Women Act because he was afraid of The Gay. Not exactly a profile in courage.
posted by zombieflanders at 2:01 PM on April 19, 2013 [8 favorites]


Question: I'm not seeing anything about a search of either suspect's home/apartment/dorm. Surely this would have been carried out, like, immediately after they were identified? Any word on that angle?
posted by Saxon Kane at 2:01 PM on April 19, 2013


A thought: The brothers are aged such that, if they didn't speak English at the time they immigrated, language acquisition might have been pretty different between them. Tamerlan, being in his mid-teens, may have had a harder time picking up English, and as such, a harder time socializing and catching up in school. Meanwhile, Dzhokhar might have snuck in just before the language acquisition window closed, permitting him to speak without an accent, catch up in school, and socialize more easily.

Now for the caveats: it's just a thought. The brothers could have spoken fluent English before immigrating. And either of them could have been far more proficient (or less proficient) at acquisition than the statistical average. I know nothing about either of them.
posted by evidenceofabsence at 2:01 PM on April 19, 2013


I could swear that the Boston Globe confirmed in a tweet that he was the suspect. Wasn't that what set everyone off last night?

From It Wasn't Sunil Tripathi: The Anatomy of a Misinformation Disaster:
A few things are for sure: the scanner chatter never mentioned the two false suspects together. The scanner chatter never mentioned them as suspects, either. The scanner chatter recordings contain no record of any mention. And no one has been able to produce any recording of the scanner mentioning Tripathi.

This presents us with a strange mystery that I wish I could fully solve, but I can't.

Perhaps this is some kind of hoax perpetrated by some unknown group.

Or maybe people heard Tripathi's name, even though police never said it. Many of the people who thought they heard Tripathi's name already knew about the Reddit-centered suspicions about the student. Police had also said another name earlier in the evening and spelled it out. Perhaps they were primed to hear the name and among the static and unreliable connections to these scanners, they heard what they wanted to hear.

Maybe that's what I want to believe. Because otherwise, I just don't understand what happened last night. A piece of evidence that fit a narrative some people really wanted to believe was conjured into existence and there was no stopping its spread.
posted by scody at 2:02 PM on April 19, 2013 [9 favorites]


Still, 5 years! That's a sobering thought.

I don't want to stay in this thread for another five years. Unless someone orders a pizza?
posted by pineappleheart at 2:02 PM on April 19, 2013 [8 favorites]


The Sunil mess is a dark stain on Reddit. I am ashamed of my fellow Redditors for dragging the reputation of an innocent man through the mud without a shred of evidence. I listened to that police scanner feed for HOURS and not once did I hear Sunil's name mentioned.
posted by RedShrek at 2:02 PM on April 19, 2013 [5 favorites]


Re: Lindsey Graham: No, these men should be treated as murdering criminals.
posted by Rustic Etruscan at 2:02 PM on April 19, 2013 [1 favorite]


I think Graham is heading into an election and feels the need to act tuff to fight off any Tea Party primary challenge.
posted by benito.strauss at 2:02 PM on April 19, 2013


"I saw the Sunil Tripathi thing on Facebook last night (when I was a little drunk) and was furious. Someone posted "this is the guy, this is him.""

There was a period of about 1-2 hours in MeFi Chat last night that was profoundly reprehensible and unsettling. I'm just glad the shitshow wasn't visible to the entire Tubes.


Glad I missed all that. I didn't know about the disappearance but as soon as I saw the name "Sunil," I was like, Hindu name, probably not involved - not that Muslims necessarily had to be involved or Hindu/Indian kids wouldn't do a lone wolf kind of thing - but what i mean is I could tell people can't make Indian/Hindu/Muslim/Arab distinctions and for my own reasons that chills me.
posted by sweetkid at 2:02 PM on April 19, 2013 [3 favorites]


I'm guessing, as I suggested in chat last night, that a Reddit troll claimed to have heard the name on the police scanner and it ran from there.
posted by Justinian at 2:03 PM on April 19, 2013


Saxon Kane, the cops have been at what is apparently the brothers' apartment in Cambridge most of the day and UMass Dartmouth (where one was apparently a student) has been shut down all day with some reports of police searching the campus. I think it's been considered.
posted by olinerd at 2:03 PM on April 19, 2013


Question: I'm not seeing anything about a search of either suspect's home/apartment/dorm. Surely this would have been carried out, like, immediately after they were identified? Any word on that angle?

There are reports that the dorm was searched and they found up to 7 IEDs in the house. Who knows what's true at this point, though.
posted by mudpuppie at 2:03 PM on April 19, 2013


In tragedy, a Republican takes charge...

What is it with tragedies bringing out the stupid in Republican politicians?
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 2:04 PM on April 19, 2013


From It Wasn't Sunil Tripathi: The Anatomy of a Misinformation Disaster:

This is nuts. I would have sworn under oath this morning that I saw a confirmation from the Boston Globe last night.
posted by eugenen at 2:04 PM on April 19, 2013


The Sunil mess is a dark stain on Reddit. I am ashamed of my fellow Redditors for dragging the reputation of an innocent man through the mud without a shred of evidence. I listened to that police scanner feed for HOURS and not once did I hear Sunil's name mentioned.

Is Reddit what people meant when they were talking about the emergence of "citizen journalism" about 10 years ago?
posted by KokuRyu at 2:05 PM on April 19, 2013


MSNBC -- Police: Watertown Lockdown Could Last Through Weekend.
posted by ericb at 2:05 PM on April 19, 2013


I thought the IEDs were from the shoot-out.

Oh well, this is why I normally try to stay away from "breaking news!" until there's actually been some sort of, you know, break.
posted by Saxon Kane at 2:06 PM on April 19, 2013


There was a period of about 1-2 hours in MeFi Chat last night that was profoundly reprehensible and unsettling. I'm just glad the shitshow wasn't visible to the entire Tubes.

Unfortunately, I think it did creep into the older Boston Marathon thread, prior to correction.
posted by CancerMan at 2:06 PM on April 19, 2013


Lindsay Graham and Matt Drudge a lot more of a danger to American values than either of the Tsarnaev brothers could ever hope to be.
posted by MCMikeNamara at 2:06 PM on April 19, 2013 [17 favorites]


If he makes it up to Maine he might be hidden for a much longer time.
posted by sammyo at 2:06 PM on April 19, 2013


Unless someone orders a pizza?

I'm game. Hawaiian?
posted by chemoboy at 2:07 PM on April 19, 2013 [3 favorites]


A thought: The brothers are aged such that, if they didn't speak English at the time they immigrated, language acquisition might have been pretty different between them.

This doesn't really make a point one way or the other, but during the Cold War, the USSR took the exact opposite path that America did (and continues to): rather than scrutinizing and ostracizing anyone who understood the language of the opposition, they made the English language a standard part of the school curriculum.

As it turns out, having a population who can understand and read the things The Bad Guys say and write is important.
posted by griphus at 2:07 PM on April 19, 2013 [2 favorites]


'American Hustle': Boston Production Stopped For Time Being In Wake Of Manhunt.

I was wondering why Bradley Cooper was here and visiting victims in the hospital.
posted by ericb at 2:08 PM on April 19, 2013


There's a picture of the older brother's dead body on Twitter? Yuck. Do not want.
posted by sweetkid at 2:10 PM on April 19, 2013


There was a period of about 1-2 hours in MeFi Chat last night that was profoundly reprehensible and unsettling. I'm just glad the shitshow wasn't visible to the entire Tubes.

Where did that stuff come from? People were acting like he'd been ID'd as one of the bombers ... But I was glued to the scanner broadcast abd heard nothing about the missing student. Were the authorities actually saying this somewhere?
posted by Unified Theory at 2:10 PM on April 19, 2013


Unfortunately, I think it did creep into the older Boston Marathon thread, prior to correction.
posted by FelliniBlank at 2:10 PM on April 19, 2013


That would make absolutely no sense based on this map. The police officer was shot right next to where the 7-11 was, and the SUV they carjacked was in a straight line from the 7-11 and the cop.

If you look on Google, that 7-11 has no gas pumps. I think the surveillance photo was probably from the gas station where the carjack victim got away, which is this Shell.
posted by smackfu at 2:10 PM on April 19, 2013


Fortunately, not the really awful stuff.
posted by FelliniBlank at 2:11 PM on April 19, 2013


There's a touching new Ask Amy up where she talks a bit about using the Internet to process this week's events.

I saw Metric play in Oakland last night, and after an hour of not saying a word to the crowd, Emily Haines went on a bit of a rant about how she doesn't like to speak at shows anymore because the Internet has made us victims of a total lack of context, where things and snippets of things (like cell phone camera recordings) just float around free-form and open to whatever spin anyone wants to put on them. (Tragically, as she was saying this, the dude next to me took out his iPhone and pressed "record".)

Seemed prescient when I woke up the next morning.
posted by eugenen at 2:12 PM on April 19, 2013 [3 favorites]




Assuming he got out of the city, I'm starting to be a little concerned that he's headed north (that is, toward my hometown). The September 11th hijackers flew out of PWM, and there are (allegedly) a number of spots in far northern Maine where you could cross into Canada without much fuss. Or, just live in this medium-sized city reasonably undetected. Or, hell, there's a boat waiting for him in Casco Bay harbor (not really; I personally think that they were not supported by anyone, but who knows).
posted by anastasiav at 2:12 PM on April 19, 2013


There are reports that the dorm was searched and they found up to 7 IEDs in the house.

fwiw MSNBC (Erica Hill?) reported last hour that 7 IEDs were found in Watertown and Cambridge. So, yeah, who the eff knows?

What's the latest on the controlled explosion at mum's house near Inman Sq.?
posted by wensink at 2:12 PM on April 19, 2013


Now with every hour that passes, his location is becoming less certain and the likelihood of finding him goes down.

No, with every hour that passes the chances of finding him go up. Boston is a big city, and even within a small part of it there are thousands or millions of places where a person might hide themselves and evade discovery. Under a dumpster is only the tip of the iceberg; there are lots of little places like that to crawl into.

But none of them are places you can really live. Eventually you run out of food, water, places to use the bathroom, etc.

A reasonably intelligent person is probably capable, in extremis, of hiding themselves in a city they're familiar with for at least a few hours. But to do it for longer than they can go hungry for? That's where it jumps to an entirely different level of difficulty, and there's no evidence that this kid is up to the task.
posted by Kadin2048 at 2:12 PM on April 19, 2013 [2 favorites]


Is Reddit what people meant when they were talking about the emergence of "citizen journalism" about 10 years ago?

To the same degree what CNN did in announcing an arrest that didn't happen is professional journalism. There is a way to do it right and apply proper skepticism. People who want to follow the news this way will have to get used to applying better filters. There is nothing wrong with sticking to more professional outlets if you don't want to do the filtering yourself.
posted by Drinky Die at 2:13 PM on April 19, 2013


If you look on Google, that 7-11 has no gas pumps. I think the surveillance photo was probably from the gas station where the carjack victim got away, which is this Shell.

neroli's timeline link seems to confirm that the photo was from Shell, but that same link says that the police are "double-checking" the 7-11 robbery:

Note: The Massachusetts State Police are backing off an earlier assertion that the two suspects had robbed a 7-Eleven in Cambridge. “The most accurate statement is that we’re investigating whether they were involved in an armed robbery in a 7-Eleven,” said Dave Procopio, a spokesman for the state police. “Initially we came out and confirmed it for you, now I want to go back and double check it,” he said. “I want to qualify that further to say we’re double-checking.”
posted by burnmp3s at 2:14 PM on April 19, 2013


Senator Lindsey Graham says the guy should be treated as an enemy combatant.

Lindsey Graham may be many things, but he does not appear to be someone who understands U.S. law.


Why not? All someone in the executive branch has to do is claim they have evidence linking them to some "terrorist" group. As far as I can tell, if the president said he was an enemy combatant he would become one.
posted by ennui.bz at 2:15 PM on April 19, 2013 [2 favorites]


Kadin2048, I think the point is that if he escaped 12 hours ago, the chance to find him gets worse.
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 2:15 PM on April 19, 2013 [1 favorite]


Based on almost nothing, he doesn't look like the "survive in the woods living off nature" type.
posted by benito.strauss at 2:16 PM on April 19, 2013 [1 favorite]


You do realize that you can go without food for a lot longer than you'd think? Shoot, I know people who have fasted for over thirty days as a religious exercise. I've done it myself for longer than I care to share on a public forum. If this kid has access to water and is motivated enough, he can stay hidden for awhile.
posted by St. Alia of the Bunnies at 2:16 PM on April 19, 2013


Unless he had a really secure hole to disappear into, he's probably not slept well, whereas BPD has the benefit of shift changes. He is going to get progressively more tired, more hungry, and therefore sloppier in his decision-making process which wasn't great to start with. That is assuming he is uninjured from the shootout, which is a big If. It may take them a while, but he will be found.
posted by ambrosia at 2:17 PM on April 19, 2013


@sweetkid someone linked that without saying what it was in a scanner chatstream. Yuck is right. I wasn't even going to mention it because I sure as hell am not re-posting it here.
posted by chemoboy at 2:17 PM on April 19, 2013


I am listening to a radio station here in Seattle and they are now trying to link Islam to these 2 suspects. Mind you, the radio presenters have not got a shred of evidence of that.
posted by RedShrek at 2:17 PM on April 19, 2013


I'm with Alia on this - you can go without food for quite some time as long as you have water - which is trivially easy to get in large cities. Not to mention dumpster diving for actual food.

How long can Boston stay shut down? It's a real question.
posted by corb at 2:18 PM on April 19, 2013 [2 favorites]


No, with every hour that passes the chances of finding him go up.

Yeah, once they got a name, it got dramatically tougher. He can't fly anywhere. He can't use any credit cards or ATM. He can't contact friends or relatives because they might be bugged or might tell the police. If he has a weapon, he can steal cars or cash or cards, but that is also risky and sets off red flags if he is identified . And what's the end game? He might wait out the breaking news, but he isn't going to wait out the FBI.

People who stay hidden for a while need a serious support network of sympathetic people.
posted by smackfu at 2:18 PM on April 19, 2013 [2 favorites]


As far as I can tell, if the president said he was an enemy combatant he would become one.

As far as I can tell, this is by precedent, not law.
posted by chemoboy at 2:18 PM on April 19, 2013


Boston Dunkin' Donuts Remain Open To 'Take Care Of Law Enforcement And First Responders'

I am sure those minimum wage employees were excited to get a "come to work" call when there is a possibly armed gunman on the loose and a directive to stay home because it is too dangerous.
posted by haplesschild at 2:18 PM on April 19, 2013 [10 favorites]


It's a donut shop, there were probably already people in the store before the lockdown.
posted by Lyn Never at 2:20 PM on April 19, 2013


I am sure those minimum wage employees were excited to get a "come to work" call when there is a possibly armed gunman on the lose and a directive to stay home because it is too dangerous.

They are probably the most well protected people in Boston right now... I'm sure they'd have plenty of willing escorts, as well.
posted by MysticMCJ at 2:20 PM on April 19, 2013 [2 favorites]


MSNBC is now saying the robbery last night at 7/11 was NOT them.
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 2:20 PM on April 19, 2013


I am listening to a radio station here in Seattle and they are now trying to link Islam to these 2 suspects. Mind you, the radio presenters have not got a shred of evidence of that.

We don't their motives for the attack, but I thought it was pretty well established that the brothers were muslim, at least nominally. Their Aunt said the older brother had become more religious and had started to pray five times a day.
posted by Area Man at 2:21 PM on April 19, 2013 [2 favorites]


They're saying now, though, that they're not the ones who robbed the 7-11.


Is it possible they didn't shoot Officer Collier?
posted by Eyebeams at 2:21 PM on April 19, 2013


I'm glad they corrected the 7/11 info before bringing in the Slurpee-sniffing dogs.
posted by FelliniBlank at 2:21 PM on April 19, 2013


corb: I'm with Alia on this - you can go without food for quite some time as long as you have water - which is trivially easy to get in large cities. Not to mention dumpster diving for actual food.

How long can Boston stay shut down? It's a real question.
I'm going to go with maybe three more meals.
posted by ob1quixote at 2:21 PM on April 19, 2013


the USSR took the exact opposite path that America did (and continues to): rather than scrutinizing and ostracizing anyone who understood the language of the opposition

This isn't a fair characterization of the US position during the Cold War. My mother still speaks a bit of leftover Russian from her high-school classes, where it was a language option alongside French and Spanish in the mid-late 60s. Speaking Russian or taking Russian cultural studies classes wasn't unusual for aspiring citizen-of-the-world types.
posted by Kadin2048 at 2:21 PM on April 19, 2013 [1 favorite]


There were Mefites who trotted out the Brown student on the other thread. Myself and another commentator alluded to the fact that Reddit was pointing out another innocent guy as the suspect. Hours later a bunch of Mefites were talking about specifics. I thought it was really quite obvious the claim was baseless, even after the most minimal research into the missing person case. Naming him here was crappy, but I guess no worse than the rest of the internet. I feel awful for his mother, who had to delete the Facebook page dedicated to finding her son because of people taking images and posting on the page that her son was the bomber.
posted by murfed13 at 2:22 PM on April 19, 2013


inertia: "I would love to know what kind of suit this guy is wearing."
I think that's the "I'd like to come home to my wife and kids tonight" suit.
posted by brokkr at 2:23 PM on April 19, 2013 [9 favorites]


Regarding the Sunil Tripathi debacle. In chat last night, someone said they heard his name on the scanner. Some people were saying, where did you hear that, did anyone else hear it? It was so late and chat kept crashing for me, I don't know who was on and who was not. I hope someone isn't on Reddit or Metafilter deliberately directing the story line.
posted by toastedbeagle at 2:25 PM on April 19, 2013


Kinda nice how living in the Information Age has made rumor, misinformation, wild speculation and sloppy journalism a thing of the past.
posted by El Sabor Asiatico at 2:25 PM on April 19, 2013 [9 favorites]


I feel awful for his mother, who had to delete the Facebook page dedicated to finding her son because of people taking images and posting on the page that her son was the bomber.

I just don't understand the mindset of people who behave this way. It doesn't honor the memory of the victims at all. It is in no way helpful or righteous or correct behavior.
posted by sweetkid at 2:25 PM on April 19, 2013


This isn't a fair characterization of the US position during the Cold War.

Well, a) Yeah that was kinda uncharitable but b) there's a difference between giving kids a choice (and all the while giving McCarthy's completely counterproductive yet stunningly effective xenophobia as much airtime and public exposure as he could possibly want) and making it clear that it is really, really important, to your entire society, that you speak a second language, which is a problem this country still has.
posted by griphus at 2:25 PM on April 19, 2013


Boston Comic Con has been canceled. Or at least postponed to some unknown future date.
posted by Area Man at 2:26 PM on April 19, 2013 [1 favorite]


And what's the end game? He might wait out the breaking news, but he isn't going to wait out the FBI.

The least bad endgame is to take to the hills Eric Rudolph-style. I don't think Tsarnaev has the skills for that one. Second one is, change your appearance drastically and head for New York City, which might be big enough and far enough away to blend in unnoticed for long enough to arrange passage to...I don't know, Russia, maybe? That takes time, money, an anonymous car, skill with disguise, and luck.

Right now, if I had to guess, I would say he was bleeding to death in a dumpster somewhere.
posted by vibrotronica at 2:27 PM on April 19, 2013 [2 favorites]


Ugh, warning, this Global Grind story on Katherine Russell (supposedly Tamerlan Tsarnaev's widow) nearly crashed my browser with all the ads on the page, only to bring me such mundane insights as "The neighbor gave more details about Russell's life, even revealing that she went back and forth between using her maiden name and her husband's last name."

Seriously?! Gasp! Not worth clicking on.
posted by limeonaire at 2:30 PM on April 19, 2013


Right now, if I had to guess, I would say he was bleeding to death in a dumpster somewhere.

Maybe if these guys get to him first.
posted by vrakatar at 2:30 PM on April 19, 2013


Right now, if I had to guess, I would say he was bleeding to death in a dumpster somewhere.

Considering the number of police looking for him, and pouring over the crime scene looking for a trail of blood or whatever, he is probably not wounded (badly).
posted by chemoboy at 2:31 PM on April 19, 2013 [1 favorite]


I wonder if there's something like an ARGUS drone over Boston during this manhunt.
posted by jason_steakums at 2:32 PM on April 19, 2013 [1 favorite]


Yeah, it was weird on chat, because I came in right after the Sunil mentions started flying and asked about it, and got told he was the dude and showed pictures. Pretty glad he's not, though.
posted by klangklangston at 2:32 PM on April 19, 2013


There is a lot of speculation that Suspect #2 is hiding in a hedge, waiting it out in a dumpster, or something similar. If so, wouldn't the K-9 units find him easily? Especially if he's wounded? It's not as if we only have visual as the only means for detection.
posted by _paegan_ at 2:33 PM on April 19, 2013


I was listening to the scanner (and in chat) during that period, and Sunil's name was never mentioned. I saw people tweet it, and then saw people repeat it who should have known better.
posted by sudama at 2:34 PM on April 19, 2013


Yes, a single person said he thought he heard that name on the police scanner, and the rest of the world picked that up as some sort of "confirmation" that the Brown student was related. Nobody else heard it. It was never heard again on the scanner, which would've have been incredibly strange had he been a real suspect.

Just really poor judgment on all the mainstream media outlets who picked up one "I thought I heard this on the scanner" and turned it into a massive online manhunt.

For the wrong person.
posted by docjohn at 2:35 PM on April 19, 2013 [2 favorites]


...blend in unnoticed for long enough to arrange passage to...I don't know, Russia, maybe?

Throwing himself on the mercy of the US Justice System would be a considerably smarter thing than risking Putin's wrath for putting Russia on the world stage like this (regardless of how much Russia continues to stress that this kid is American as far as they're is concerned.)
posted by griphus at 2:35 PM on April 19, 2013 [5 favorites]


Stupid question, but is there a reason they don't seem to use dogs any more for tracking for this kind of thing? Or have they had them out, and we just didn't hear about it? The reports I've seen had him on foot when he was last seen.
posted by dilettante at 2:35 PM on April 19, 2013


I've been searching for a way to quantify how I've been feeling today, and perhaps unsurprisingly my eventual source of inspiration was my experience as a Red Sox fan in the 1980s and 1990s. Let's call the average amount of anxiety a Red Sox fan experienced watching a single game in the 1990s a Bambino Curse Stress Unit (BCSU). For some games it was lower, for Yankees games it was higher.

My stress level was at about 15 BCSUs while watching games during the 2003 and 2004 ALCS's.

I would say I'm at about 12 BCSUs today from this manhunt. It may seem weird that my stress level has been lower than during some baseball games. But that's because today I've just had a general sense of worry, while during baseball games I'd have to watch Red Sox pitching for half the freaking game.
posted by A dead Quaker at 2:35 PM on April 19, 2013 [6 favorites]


Is it possible they didn't shoot Officer Collier?

It's possible. The info that has been released is not very detailed: he responded to reports of a disturbance and was shot and found by police responding to reports of shots fired. And then a car was carjacked a couple of blocks away, that was definitely the bombers.
posted by smackfu at 2:35 PM on April 19, 2013


Putin is no friend of Chechens who set off bombs.
posted by Area Man at 2:36 PM on April 19, 2013 [1 favorite]


From the NYT: One law enforcement official said Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was wounded, and two other officials said the authorities had tracked him at some point during the manhunt by his blood trail.

200 bullets exchanged with police and they don't hit him once? Possible, sure. Probable? Then again, if they can get a positive scent trail, police dogs can trail an astonishing distance. Probably helps to have everyone else sheltering in place not covering over trails. (Not saying that's why they are keeping people indoors, obviously.)
posted by ambrosia at 2:37 PM on April 19, 2013


...blend in unnoticed for long enough to arrange passage to...I don't know, Russia, maybe?


If he did that, the UMASS Dartmouth professor mentioned upthread who tutored him in Chechen history should give him a refund.
posted by MCMikeNamara at 2:37 PM on April 19, 2013 [12 favorites]


Stupid question, but is there a reason they don't seem to use dogs any more for tracking for this kind of thing? Or have they had them out, and we just didn't hear about it?

If the suspect escaped in an SUV, how are the dogs going to track him?
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 2:38 PM on April 19, 2013


K9 units have been out in force, but they only have so many of these units (and such a large area to cover... Watertown is a small town unto itself with 32,000+ people and 4 square miles).
posted by docjohn at 2:38 PM on April 19, 2013


I would say I'm at about 12 BCSUs today from this manhunt.

How much is that in Smoots?
posted by murphy slaw at 2:38 PM on April 19, 2013 [1 favorite]


I think the surveillance photo was probably from the gas station where the carjack victim got away, which is this Shell.

Yep.

Retail cameras assist in investigations; Boston suspects robbed a Shell c-store, not 7-Eleven as widely reported (w/ photo).

They tried 3 times to use the carjacking victim's ATM card. First time failed due to improper PIN. Second attempt they withdrew $800. Third attempt failed, as the card had reached its daily limit.

The police released surveillance photos that show one of the suspects, Dzhokhar A. Tsarnaev, at the Bank of America in Watertown Square at 11:18 p.m. (scroll down for photo).
posted by ericb at 2:39 PM on April 19, 2013 [4 favorites]


They have both bomb dogs and tracking dogs out there. You can trust people are going about this competently.
posted by snuffleupagus at 2:39 PM on April 19, 2013


I was under the impression they had dogs out very early this morning (say, 4am), but there was so much speculation going on I hardly know if it was true.

Folks over at Reddit are claiming that two suspects have been taken into custody, neither of which is "white hat." One of them, allegedly, is an elderly white male--presumably the same guy as earlier, though I haven't seen any gestures toward a resolution of the "old white guy with bomb vest in custody" story of 1pm-ish...
posted by tapir-whorf at 2:39 PM on April 19, 2013


Sorry for length. Clears up some questions.

In a statement, police said the first indication of trouble was 10:24 p.m. when MIT Police received a call from someone reporting they had heard what they feared was gunshots. Four minutes later, the 7-11 store at 750 Massachusetts Avenue was the victim of an armed robber =- but that crime was not commited by the brothers, State Police now say.
One minute later, however, authorities allege that the brothers did shoot and kill MIT Police Oficer Sean A. Collier as the officer sat in his MIT cruiser.
Two minutes later, authorities receive a call that a car has been carjacked by two men outside 816 Memorial Drive. A short time later – it was not immediately clear – a Transit Police officer spots the vehicle and pursues, a chase that came to a stop in Watertown.’
In the moments that followed, 200 rounds were fired by police and apparently by the brothers. Police also recovered “numerous pieces of evidence” including “evidence of homemade explosives, including pipe bombs and another pressure cooker,’’ State Police said.
Also, contrary to what Alben said earlier this afternoon, no potential explosives were found on Norfolk Street in Cambridge where the two brothers lived, and a planned “controlled explosion’’ was deemed unwarranted.
“We did not have to do the controlled detonation,’’ State Police spokesman David Procopio wrote. “We thought a car there might have an explosive but it did not.’’

posted by shortfuse at 2:39 PM on April 19, 2013 [3 favorites]


There is a lot of speculation that Suspect #2 is hiding in a hedge, waiting it out in a dumpster, or something similar. If so, wouldn't the K-9 units find him easily? Especially if he's wounded? It's not as if we only have visual as the only means for detection.
Flanker for a volunteer K-9 Search and Rescue team here.

Even when someone that is being tracked isn't trying to evade, it's not easy to search an area and track someone with a dog. It's easy to break a trail by getting in a car, crossing moving water, crossing a street with active traffic, etc. Plus, the number of well trained dogs that can do that kind of tracking is frighteningly small.

If he ditched a car that he was in, crossed a street to another block, and hid in a culvert or under a bush ... he's not going to be found by a dog.
posted by SpecialK at 2:40 PM on April 19, 2013 [17 favorites]


The reddit info is from scanner chatter and police themselves are treating that situation as open ended thus far.
posted by snuffleupagus at 2:41 PM on April 19, 2013


Haven't read the whole thread (this time), but why is everyone assuming he's under a dumpster or otherwise alone outdoors? I am far more worried (and it seems far more likely) there's another accomplice / friend with publicly clean hands we don't know about who's putting him up. Or is the assumption that because he escaped in Watertown he doesn't know anyone in that neighborhood? Did I miss something?
posted by Mchelly at 2:41 PM on April 19, 2013


So the car wasn't hijacked on Third, according to the police statement.

If it took them 2 minutes to get from Stata Center to 816 Mem Drive (Starbucks outside Trader Joe) then that's awful fast driving.
posted by shortfuse at 2:41 PM on April 19, 2013


Timeline on CNN just now (I know, they are hardly batting a thousand on this) indicated the younger brother drove away from the Watertown shootout, driving OVER his brother. Yikes.

So, if that is true, they know that vehicle. Manhunt house to house indicates he ditched it, and that would jibe with reports of a blood trail.

All routes out of the city ought to have been shut down by, what, an hour after the Watertown shootout?
posted by vrakatar at 2:42 PM on April 19, 2013


Thank you for the education, SpecialK.
posted by _paegan_ at 2:42 PM on April 19, 2013


Oh, and if you listen to the police scanners, you'll hear bomb sniffing dogs referred to as "EOD K-9 units", normal police dogs (which are usually trained to do things like sniffing out drugs, usually specific drugs, and take down fleeing suspects by running fast and biting them) as "police dogs" or just normal/plain K-9 units, and "search dogs" would be wide area search or tracking dogs.
posted by SpecialK at 2:43 PM on April 19, 2013 [3 favorites]


Thanks, SpecialK. I had seen that they were using bomb dogs, but not about tracking dogs. And I knew they didn't seem to be used so much any more, but not much about why.
posted by dilettante at 2:44 PM on April 19, 2013


I am far more worried (and it seems far more likely) there's another accomplice / friend with publicly clean hands we don't know about who's putting him up.

At this point, I would think the police know everyone he's called, emailed or texted within the last x number of years.
posted by drezdn at 2:44 PM on April 19, 2013 [1 favorite]


If this were a movie, they'd bring in Colton Harris-Moore as a consulting criminal.
posted by jason_steakums at 2:45 PM on April 19, 2013




Time to 'Staht Drinking'!

We're having Dark & Stormies (Gosling).
posted by ericb at 2:45 PM on April 19, 2013 [6 favorites]


Mother of suspect says Tamerlan was followed by FBI for 3 years. Further info from CNN (?!) coming . . .

Dzhokhar drove over Tamerlan's body with highjacked SUV to escape . . .
posted by Eyebeams at 2:47 PM on April 19, 2013


Further info from CNN (?!) coming . . .

Is that a threat?
posted by tonycpsu at 2:48 PM on April 19, 2013 [6 favorites]


tapir-whorf: Folks over at Reddit are claiming that two suspects have been taken into custody, neither of which is "white hat." One of them, allegedly, is an elderly white male--presumably the same guy as earlier, though I haven't seen any gestures toward a resolution of the "old white guy with bomb vest in custody" story of 1pm-ish...

After the last few days, why is anyone bringing crap from Reddit into this thread? Do we need to participate in yet more harrassment of innocent people by those fuckwads?
posted by tavella at 2:49 PM on April 19, 2013 [16 favorites]


And I knew they didn't seem to be used so much any more, but not much about why.
They're of limited utility in an urban area that's filled with people going about their business. Bomb dogs are, and drug dogs are, and dogs that can clear rooms so that their partners don't get shot are, but tracking and wide area search dogs aren't.

Tracking and wide area search dogs are mostly used to find people who wander off from old folks homes or kids who are lost in the wilderness (or people who are suicidal and wander off into the wilderness). Wide area search dogs are also used heavily in disasters like the one in West, Texas. They are very useful there to find people who are still alive inside collapsed buildings. But all the other people need to be cleared out of an area for that kind of searching ability to be useful. Which is one of the reasons that everyone's bottled up in their homes... it gives the police the ability to search a city block outdoors without other people interfering with a search.

Some of my friends are in West, TX right now deployed with Texas Task Force 1 Urban Search And Rescue.

As it gets dark, I expect them to bust out the FLIR-equipped helicopters and night goggles.
posted by SpecialK at 2:50 PM on April 19, 2013 [5 favorites]


Bomb dogs can only work for so long before they have to stop and rest. Presumably tracking dogs are the same way?
posted by Jahaza at 2:50 PM on April 19, 2013


Lindsey Graham may be many things, but he does not appear to be someone who understands U.S. law.

He and our current President do occasionally agree on a few things.
posted by RobotVoodooPower at 2:51 PM on April 19, 2013 [1 favorite]


Haven't read the whole thread (this time), but why is everyone assuming he's under a dumpster or otherwise alone outdoors? I am far more worried (and it seems far more likely) there's another accomplice / friend with publicly clean hands we don't know about who's putting him up. Or is the assumption that because he escaped in Watertown he doesn't know anyone in that neighborhood?

My bet is that he pulled a favor from a friend who's willing to let him hide out for the day. I don't think the police are able to poke a flashlight into every utility room, attic, and closet in the Boston area.
posted by CBrachyrhynchos at 2:51 PM on April 19, 2013


How much is that in Smoots?

Honestly, I associate Smoots with the times I go over the Harvard Bridge when I'm out running, which is a stress reliever. So it's a negative number of some sort.
posted by A dead Quaker at 2:51 PM on April 19, 2013 [1 favorite]



Is there one site for all the images, or a page with links to all known images? (probably a silly question considering the potential volume, but....)
posted by fluffycreature at 2:52 PM on April 19, 2013


there's another accomplice / friend with publicly clean hands we don't know about who's putting him up

If he's hurt, there could be a Dr. Mudd. Or maybe he's already bled to death and the search is unwittingly looking for a dead guy.
posted by The 10th Regiment of Foot at 2:52 PM on April 19, 2013


Folks over at Reddit ... blah blah blah

I had heard mention of this over the scanner, but they have been detaining "subjects" all day. When you go house to house, some of the residents are not going to be 100% cooperative and some might be abusive.
posted by chemoboy at 2:53 PM on April 19, 2013


After the last few days, why is anyone bringing crap from Reddit into this thread? Do we need to participate in yet more harrassment of innocent people by those fuckwads?


Actually, the older white guy with a possible bomb with a suspected deadman trigger is actually a verifiable thing. They handcuffed him and let EOD deal with him.

There was a LOT of police radio traffic about it. They used two bomb robots. Then about half an hour later they released about half of the units to command center debrief them. I wasn't tracking the other units to see when they got released. However, we never heard what happened to the guy, and usually the police have been publicly clearing people.
posted by SpecialK at 2:53 PM on April 19, 2013


It's much more likely that the car was hijacked on Third St., near the MIT campus, then driven on Mem Drive, possibly to multiple ATMs, including one by Trader Joe's and one by the Shell Station, which are both on Mem Drive.
posted by Mapes at 2:54 PM on April 19, 2013


sweetkid: I could tell people can't make Indian/Hindu/Muslim/Arab distinctions and for my own reasons that chills me.

I had a similar reaction, reading about this last night, and when I first heard about the gurdwara shooting in Wisconsin.

Tripathi's poor family.... hope Sunil turns up soon.
posted by mayurasana at 2:54 PM on April 19, 2013


There's also idiots apparently walking around getting detained.
posted by The 10th Regiment of Foot at 2:54 PM on April 19, 2013


200 bullets exchanged with police and they don't hit him once? Possible, sure. Probable?

Unless they were snipers or such, I can easily believe 200 rounds downrange with no hits.

We're having Dark & Stormies (Gosling).

Dahrk an Stahrmies! Wicked Drink!
posted by eriko at 2:56 PM on April 19, 2013


All Things Considered is really living up to its name today, talking to a classmate about what one of the suspects was like in 4th grade.
posted by Jahaza at 2:57 PM on April 19, 2013 [3 favorites]


Bomb dogs can only work for so long before they have to stop and rest. Presumably tracking dogs are the same way?
Agreed. And we can't hear the tac channel that the search units are using except when search division commanders check in with incident command, and those are usually incident reports or completion reports instead of mundane things like checking into and out of a search section for rehab. But yes, they R&R the units after they complete each section. A dog is really like a two year old child. The dog is trained that it's task, such as searching, is a game it gets rewarded for when it finds the thing you want it to find. And there's only so long you can make a 2 year old play without getting a reward, and you can't give the dog a reward for finding nothing.

So, yes, they get a lot of downtime.
posted by SpecialK at 2:58 PM on April 19, 2013 [1 favorite]


specialk, If it's "verifiable" then you can link to an actual law enforcement report, not Reddit. So far they've terrorized a highschooler and caused unimaginable agony to the parents of a missing kid, blackened the name of a third person, and caused shit for any number of other people they were doxxing and spreadding pictures of in their charming little witchhunt. Why the hell are we helping them?
posted by tavella at 2:59 PM on April 19, 2013 [3 favorites]


Unless they were snipers or such, I can easily believe 200 rounds downrange with no hits.

Also, remember that there in fact were multiple hits on the other suspect and wasn't a policeman hospitalized as well (in addition to the one killed)?
posted by Jahaza at 2:59 PM on April 19, 2013


Thanks, Special K, about the dog info. The scanner last night would occaisionally mention needing 'fresh dogs' and considering that they're bringing dogs up from NY and maybe other regions, it implied a certain time period of effectiveness.

Last night about outing the Brown student was really weird. The scanner named one guy, who was later released and then the scanner site went down for several people for a few minutes. During that window, that's when the tweets came out about Sunil.

I hope this all ends soon.
posted by zix at 3:00 PM on April 19, 2013 [1 favorite]


Does anyone have a sense of whether the police are willing or able to transport people who live in Watertown elsewhere? Depending on how long this goes on, someone's liable to run out of food or meds or whatnot. Could that account for some of the "subjects"?
posted by evidenceofabsence at 3:00 PM on April 19, 2013


Depending on how long this goes on, someone's liable to run out of food or meds or whatnot.

I heard a prescription delivery a few hours ago. Police escorted.
posted by mudpuppie at 3:02 PM on April 19, 2013 [1 favorite]


They seem to be close to calling their initiall search 100%. What then?
posted by The 10th Regiment of Foot at 3:02 PM on April 19, 2013


Holy crap... there are units who have been out for over 24 hours checking in.
posted by SpecialK at 3:03 PM on April 19, 2013 [1 favorite]


A friend in Boston said on Facebook that she was nearly had a heart attack when UPS came to drop off a package. The shoes must get through!
posted by The corpse in the library at 3:04 PM on April 19, 2013 [2 favorites]


One minute later, however, authorities allege that the brothers did shoot and kill MIT Police Oficer Sean A. Collier as the officer sat in his MIT cruiser.
Two minutes later, authorities receive a call that a car has been carjacked by two men outside 816 Memorial Drive. A short time later – it was not immediately clear – a Transit Police officer spots the vehicle and pursues, a chase that came to a stop in Watertown.’


Where is this police statement? The timing and sequence doesn't add up from what I'm reading elsewhere.
posted by murfed13 at 3:04 PM on April 19, 2013


200 bullets exchanged with police and they don't hit him once? Possible, sure. Probable?

According to this timeline (see number 6), a police SUV was driven towards the brothers during the gun battle. The two managed to "severely damage" by shooting at it. So that may have accounted for a lot of the 200 bullets.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 3:04 PM on April 19, 2013


After the last few days, why is anyone bringing crap from Reddit into this thread? Do we need to participate in yet more harrassment of innocent people by those fuckwads?

We also bring crap from CNN. And, frankly, Reddit's been more reliable.
posted by _paegan_ at 3:05 PM on April 19, 2013 [4 favorites]


As my wife pointed out to me this morning, it's a bad day to go into labor in Boston today.
posted by 445supermag at 3:05 PM on April 19, 2013 [3 favorites]




Holy crap... there are units who have been out for over 24 hours checking in.

Adrenalin is a hell of a drug!
posted by The 10th Regiment of Foot at 3:05 PM on April 19, 2013


BobbyVan: And/or mentally ill, of course.

Haven't seen any evidence to support that, yet.
Nor to dispute it, which means it's possible, and hardly unlikely (based on previous terrorists in the US).
posted by IAmBroom at 3:06 PM on April 19, 2013


meditated self - what the hell is that? Sincere question - I don't have access to CNN here.
posted by terrierhead at 3:07 PM on April 19, 2013 [1 favorite]


They seem to be close to calling their initiall search 100%. What then?
I suspect from radio traffic that they were doing what's called an area search. That means that they think that the suspect is in an area, so they set up a perimeter, then they break the inside of the area down into big chunks and little chunks, station an officer at certain posts, and proceed to search the area little chunk by chunk until the big chunks are done.

It sounds like they're almost done with certain big chunks.
posted by SpecialK at 3:08 PM on April 19, 2013


Press conference has just stated.
posted by ericb at 3:08 PM on April 19, 2013


I heard mention of the older man in custody too, I just haven't heard anything more about it on the scanner.
posted by klangklangston at 3:08 PM on April 19, 2013


Holy crap... there are units who have been out for over 24 hours checking in.

Keep in mind that these folks also had a major memorial service and a hastily arranged presidential visit yesterday morning, which also required massive law enforcement resources to secure.
posted by zachlipton at 3:08 PM on April 19, 2013 [1 favorite]


MBTA is reopened, effective immediately, and the stay-inside order is lifted.
posted by Kosh at 3:08 PM on April 19, 2013


Per live press conference, stay indoors order is lifted and the T is starting back up effective immediately.
posted by zachlipton at 3:08 PM on April 19, 2013


terrierhead: meditated self - what the hell is that? Sincere question - I don't have access to CNN here.
I would guess she's trying to get the attention of the producers in the network center.
posted by ob1quixote at 3:08 PM on April 19, 2013 [1 favorite]


Well, they're lifting the curfew.
posted by Jahaza at 3:08 PM on April 19, 2013


ericb: "Press conference has just stated."

Link to stream?
posted by Strass at 3:09 PM on April 19, 2013


Lockdown lifted. MBTA is open. Keep vigilant.
posted by ericb at 3:09 PM on April 19, 2013


The T is back?!

*raises tiny can of Gosling's pre-mixed d&s to mefi*

hey it was a gift
posted by ghostbikes at 3:09 PM on April 19, 2013 [1 favorite]


"Things are going to be different; we're going to see saturated patrols."

Saturated with what?
posted by benbenson at 3:10 PM on April 19, 2013 [1 favorite]


So I stayed inside scared out of my head all day for... ?
posted by sonika at 3:10 PM on April 19, 2013


WCVB live stream.
posted by ericb at 3:11 PM on April 19, 2013


After the last few days, why is anyone bringing crap from Reddit into this thread? Do we need to participate in yet more harrassment of innocent people by those fuckwads?

We also bring crap from CNN. And, frankly, Reddit's been more reliable.


I said something about this last night in the other thread, but really, I don't think it's fair to shit on the whole of reddit for the awful, terrible, irresponsible actions of a few. The mods of that subreddit clamped down on the speculation and were actively deleting the threads and directing those there to NOT name any names. Further, I frequented that subreddit a good majority of the evening and watched the whole thing transpire and a huge chunk of redditors were calling for it to be cut out and trying really hard to downvote that speculation into oblivion.

If a couple people here on metafilter had done the same thing and the mods and other commenters weren't able to quash it before it got out of hand, I really don't think I'd hold the entirety of metafilter responsible for that.
posted by youandiandaflame at 3:12 PM on April 19, 2013 [6 favorites]


So I stayed inside scared out of my head all day for... ?
I realize this thread is huge, but ... you stayed inside scared out of your head so that the police could conduct an area search for a guy who was part of killing three or four other people and injuring hundreds in a really serious and bloody way. They thought the guy was inside the boundaries of the area they were searching in and wanted you to at least have a wall between you and inevitable bullets when they find them.
posted by SpecialK at 3:12 PM on April 19, 2013 [39 favorites]


Does anyone know what led to this stage of the hunt? The first thing listed on the Globe and NYTimes timelines is the shooting of the MIT cop, anyone know what provoked that?
posted by benbenson at 3:13 PM on April 19, 2013


"Saturated with what?"

Urine, mostly.
posted by klangklangston at 3:14 PM on April 19, 2013


To add to what SpecialK said about bomb-sniffing: the activity itself is very intense. None of or senses are as tuned as a dog's sense of smell, but the best human equivalent I can think of is trying to find Waldo: even if you're really good at it, scrutinizing map the size of a gymnasium floor will exhaust you pretty quick.
posted by griphus at 3:15 PM on April 19, 2013 [1 favorite]


So the 'saturated patrols' are for...'comfort'???
posted by kitcat at 3:16 PM on April 19, 2013


They didn't rob the 7-11. They were in the store when somebody else robbed it and were caught on camera.

We are living in 24 now.
posted by Holy Zarquon's Singing Fish at 3:17 PM on April 19, 2013 [15 favorites]


Okay, because I checked out and now can barely put together the confirmed from suspected from speculation and CNN is no freaking help, can I ask what the hell happened today? the 7-11 wasn't connected but a Shell station was? They're chasing this guy based on photographs? There are other guys in custody? Reddit fingered the wrong person in the night? He shot an MIT officer because? I just need like, a timeline.
posted by The Whelk at 3:17 PM on April 19, 2013


Search teams are WICKED PISSED that the governor let the public back onto the streets before they had a chance to finish.
posted by SpecialK at 3:18 PM on April 19, 2013


The first thing listed on the Globe and NYTimes timelines is the shooting of the MIT cop, anyone know what provoked that?

I don't believe that's publicly known at this point.
posted by DevilsAdvocate at 3:19 PM on April 19, 2013


A reporter just asked "Have you learned anything new in the last 8 hours?" Answer: "No"
posted by knapah at 3:19 PM on April 19, 2013


They didn't rob the 7-11. They were in the store when somebody else robbed it and were caught on camera.

I thought that it was that they did in fact rob the Shell station convenience store, and somehow "convenience store" morphed into "7-11"?
posted by scody at 3:20 PM on April 19, 2013


After the last few days, why is anyone bringing crap from Reddit into this thread?

Their livefeeds have been a lot better than MeFi, for one thing.
posted by five fresh fish at 3:20 PM on April 19, 2013 [1 favorite]


So the 'saturated patrols' are for...'comfort'???

Basically, that, and because they're presumably concerned that he'll return to the area. And because while they may be pretty sure that he's left the area, it's still a very real possibility that he's holed up in a basement somewhere nearby.
posted by Tomorrowful at 3:20 PM on April 19, 2013


BobbyVan: And/or mentally ill, of course. Haven't seen any evidence to support that, yet.

IAmBroom: Nor to dispute it, which means it's possible, and hardly unlikely (based on previous terrorists in the US).


Can we please stop the hate and prejudice directed at people with mental illness? There is no strong link connecting violence and mental illness -- a person with mental illness is more likely to be a victim of violence, not its perpetrator (as has been said before).
posted by docjohn at 3:20 PM on April 19, 2013 [22 favorites]


So instead of immediately jumping to "what the police are doing is all wrong!" I would encourage people to take a few minutes and try to imagine themselves in charge of this search effort and decide what they would do that would be clearly superior, keeping in mind that:

1) You don't want anyone else killed
2) You want to find your suspect twelve hours ago
3) You don't want to keep transit and the populace sitting idle any longer than absolutely necessary

What if the suspect shows up on a train in two hours, holding five hostages and wearing a suicide vest with a deadman's switch. Will you still be convinced of your course of action? What if it turns out that his corpse has been getting cold in some bizarre cranny somewhere, can you defend your decisions?
posted by kavasa at 3:21 PM on April 19, 2013 [8 favorites]


Actually they paid for gas. Go figure.
posted by murfed13 at 3:21 PM on April 19, 2013


I get what the stay inside order was FOR, I guess I'm just expressing my impotent rage that from the civilian stick inside POV it seemed fruitless. I get that it was important, I've just been in my house with a 2yr old and had the hope that there would be some kind of "resolution" at the end of this.
posted by sonika at 3:21 PM on April 19, 2013


Yeah, this NBC report has them robbing a 7-Eleven after they shot the MIT cop.

Dunno WTF actually happened yet.
posted by klangklangston at 3:22 PM on April 19, 2013


I thought that it was that they did in fact rob the Shell station convenience store, and somehow "convenience store" morphed into "7-11"?

He specifically said they were at the 7-11.
posted by Holy Zarquon's Singing Fish at 3:23 PM on April 19, 2013


(Also not objecting to the order itself, I understand entirely where law enforcement was coming from. Basically it's been a stressful day and I feel a zillion times less safe than I did this morning.)
posted by sonika at 3:23 PM on April 19, 2013 [1 favorite]


If this first-hand account is to be believed, keep your eyes peeled for a very nervous 19-year-old who's not carrying a mobile phone.

[via TPM] Gilberto Junior, 44, said that the man, who has been identified as Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, 19, appeared to be “very nervous.”

“He was biting his fingernails, and was shaky,” Junior said.

Tsarnaev had dropped off the car, which Junior described as a white Mercedes wagon, at the auto shop about two weeks earlier. It had rear bumper damage, and Tsarnaev had said it was his girlfriend’s. On Tuesday, when Tsarnaev suddenly returned, Junior told him the car wasn’t ready.

“I don’t care, I don’t care, I don’t care, I need the car right now,” Tsarnaev said, according to Junior.

posted by wensink at 3:24 PM on April 19, 2013


What if the suspect shows up on a train in two hours, holding five hostages and wearing a suicide vest with a deadman's switch. Will you still be convinced of your course of action? What if it turns out that his corpse has been getting cold in some bizarre cranny somehow, can you defend your decisions?

Gotta say I'm glad I don't have to make these decisions. Worst job in the world today.
posted by double bubble at 3:24 PM on April 19, 2013 [1 favorite]


(Also not objecting to the order itself, I understand entirely where law enforcement was coming from. Basically it's been a stressful day and I feel a zillion times less safe than I did this morning.)

Then it's a pretty good thing you stayed inside today!
posted by mudpuppie at 3:24 PM on April 19, 2013 [1 favorite]


If the suspect fled on foot, and the lockdown is now lifted, why didn't Col. Alben tell everyone, "Please go check to see if your car is still there, and if it's not text me the license plate number ASAP."
posted by Eyebeams at 3:25 PM on April 19, 2013 [1 favorite]


So I stayed inside scared out of my head all day for... ?

... Quality time with your family!
posted by ericb at 3:25 PM on April 19, 2013


Actually they paid for gas. Go figure.

Not paying for gas calls attention to themselves, which is probably the last thing they wanted.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 3:25 PM on April 19, 2013


There is no strong link connecting violence and mental illness -- a person with mental illness is more likely to be a victim of violence, not its perpetrator (as has been said before).
The relative chance of a person with mental illness being a victim or a perpetrator seems to have nothing at all to do with how likely a perpetrator is to have mental illness.

I'm not saying "he must have mental illness" is necessarily right (in fact if pressed I'd say it depends on what the person saying it means by "mental illness") but "more likely victim than perp" does not seem to me to be a valid rebuttal to it.
posted by Flunkie at 3:25 PM on April 19, 2013 [4 favorites]


Yeah it sucks a lot, sonika. I hope for you and everyone else there's a definitive end soon.
posted by kavasa at 3:26 PM on April 19, 2013


So instead of immediately jumping to "what the police are doing is all wrong!"

Sorry, didn't mean to do that. It was an honest question. I'm impressed by their level-headedness.
posted by kitcat at 3:26 PM on April 19, 2013


I'm not listening to the scanner at the moment -- are the searchers expressing dismay that the shelter-in-place order is lifted?
posted by Unified Theory at 3:27 PM on April 19, 2013


Dzhokhar drove over Tamerlan's body with highjacked SUV to escape . . .

Nope. The man JUST said he escaped on foot.
posted by quonsar II: smock fishpants and the temple of foon at 3:27 PM on April 19, 2013


Well, lifted lockdown or no, it's not like anything in Watertown is open, anyway. Grocery shopping tomorrow should be interesting.
posted by Elementary Penguin at 3:27 PM on April 19, 2013


Dudes, lay off the guilt tripping. Complaining about how members of govt/law enforcement are doing their job is the American way.
posted by murfed13 at 3:27 PM on April 19, 2013 [1 favorite]


CNN lady: "A lot of terrorists ARE brothers."
posted by Eyebeams at 3:28 PM on April 19, 2013 [4 favorites]


The fact that they didn't do anything to particularly disguise themselves when they left the bombs and then again when they bought gas at a convenience store last night suggests they don't much care about coming out of this alive (or to be found not guilty). Their behavior last night suggests two men who don't really care what happens to them.

They are either completely oblivious to the prevalence of security cameras in modern society. Or they don't care that their faces are being captured on camera.
posted by docjohn at 3:28 PM on April 19, 2013


So, no statement from the FBI?
posted by dorkydancer at 3:29 PM on April 19, 2013


are the searchers expressing dismay that the shelter-in-place order is lifted?

Nope, it seems to have changed little. They are still tracking movements and talking about individuals.
posted by The 10th Regiment of Foot at 3:29 PM on April 19, 2013


"I'm not listening to the scanner at the moment -- are the searchers expressing dismay that the shelter-in-place order is lifted?"

A lot of it now is seemingly unrelated stuff, like some couple detained "on the hill" wherever that is.
posted by klangklangston at 3:30 PM on April 19, 2013


are the searchers expressing dismay that the shelter-in-place order is lifted?
Both law enforcement and other agencies are definitely expressing dismay and asking for instructions as people are headed out into the streets.
posted by SpecialK at 3:30 PM on April 19, 2013


kitcat, "helping people feel safe" is in my view a central purpose of law enforcement, so yeah, comfort is part of it.

I'm sure they're also hoping that the suspect will emerge as night falls and that a patrol officer will spot him.

murfed - not really guilt tripping? I just don't think that the alternative is really helpful for anyone.
posted by kavasa at 3:31 PM on April 19, 2013


Trying to figure out if this general lockdown lift applies to my aunts, due to their proximity to the crime scenes. If they can, we're working on getting them out to a place where they can feel safe tonight. If anyone hears anything about this, particularly folks who have been in the perimeter in Watertown, please let me know here or by MeMail. I greatly appreciate it!

They had their home thoroughly searched and cleared by the SWAT team crews earlier, who they said were very friendly given the circumstances.
posted by rollbiz at 3:31 PM on April 19, 2013


Flunkie: The relative chance of a person with mental illness being a victim or a perpetrator seems to have nothing at all to do with how likely a perpetrator is to have mental illness.

Except when it's used as a short-hand excuse to explain criminal behavior others can't understand. Most criminal behavior is not readily explainable to most people, because most people are law-abiding citizens.
posted by docjohn at 3:31 PM on April 19, 2013 [1 favorite]


Here's an IndieGoGo fundraiser for Dic Donohue, the injured MBTA officer. It looks to have been started by classmates of his.
posted by youandiandaflame at 3:34 PM on April 19, 2013


Complaining about how members of govt/law enforcement are doing their job is the American way.

Not here, not today.
posted by benito.strauss at 3:35 PM on April 19, 2013


No, "more likely victim than perp" doesn't have anything to do with the chance of a perpetrator having mental illness regardless of whether "he has mental illness" is used as an excuse or not.

Again, I'm not saying that "he has mental illness" is necessarily a good conclusion, and you may very well be 100% correct that it is in fact a bad conclusion. But your reason for saying it's a bad conclusion does not actually show that.
posted by Flunkie at 3:35 PM on April 19, 2013


It would be just as valid to blame "he likes to read Hemingway" or "he likes to watch CSI" as the reasons. It's a non sequitur.
posted by docjohn at 3:37 PM on April 19, 2013


Reading Hemingway has a lower correlation with anti-social and violent action. I mean, I understand what you're doing, but isn't it fair to, say, note the mental illness of the ricin guy more than the Elvis impersonator thing?
posted by klangklangston at 3:40 PM on April 19, 2013


Reports on Twitter that online access to police scanner is no longer available. Can anyone confirm?
posted by wensink at 3:41 PM on April 19, 2013


That may very well be true. I am not arguing that it is not true. But again, the reason you gave to attempt to show that it is true does not show that it is true.

I'm not sure how to be more clear on this. You seem to be arguing with me as if I mean that "he must be mentally ill" is a good conclusion, despite me repeatedly explicitly saying exactly the opposite. So I guess I'll just drop it now.
posted by Flunkie at 3:42 PM on April 19, 2013



Not here, not today.


I know what you are getting at, but the idea that you can't criticize the govt or law enforcement in times of crisis is an extremely dangerous one.

That being said, I am very thankful for the men and women who are out there protecting us in a very scary situation.
posted by murfed13 at 3:43 PM on April 19, 2013 [2 favorites]


After the last few days, why is anyone bringing crap from Reddit into this thread?

Their livefeeds have been a lot better than MeFi, for one thing.


True that.

"My son would never do this. My son ... it is a set up. He was counseled by FBI like for 3, 5 years. They knew what my son was doing. They knew what actions and what sites on the Internet he was going. They used to come home and talk to me. They used to tell me that they are counseling his, they were telling me that he is really a serious leader and they are afraid of him."

- Zubeidat Tsarnaeva
posted by mrgrimm at 3:43 PM on April 19, 2013


Looking at some of the updates posted from the scanner, these guys are going to be chasing anyone that looks remotely like him and sending EOD teams to any bag that's found.

I'd rather it be like this than the way it was when the LAPD was hunting for Dorner.
posted by azpenguin at 3:44 PM on April 19, 2013


docjohn: "It would be just as valid to blame "he likes to read Hemingway" or "he likes to watch CSI" as the reasons. It's a non sequitur."

No no no... It's "Catcher in the Rye".
posted by symbioid at 3:44 PM on April 19, 2013 [1 favorite]


Reports on Twitter that online access to police scanner is no longer available. Can anyone confirm?

The ustream link that's been on all day is gone, but another has popped up.
posted by mudpuppie at 3:44 PM on April 19, 2013


Juan Cole: Fathers and Sons and Chechnya
posted by homunculus at 3:44 PM on April 19, 2013 [3 favorites]


Reports on Twitter that online access to police scanner is no longer available. Can anyone confirm?

Thanks a lot, Reddit. *Metafilter punches Reddit in arm; Reddit howls "mo-ommmm!!!!" from backseat; Mom goes all I WILL TURN THIS CAR RIGHT AROUND AND THEN NO ONE IS GOING TO DISNEYLAND IS THAT WHAT YOU WANT DO NOT TEST ME*
posted by scody at 3:45 PM on April 19, 2013 [16 favorites]




The current Live Boston Update Thread (at reddit) does a good job of aggregating the little things happening on the scanner, if you don't have the ability to listen to it.
posted by youandiandaflame at 3:47 PM on April 19, 2013


The ustream link that's been on all day is gone, but another has popped up.

Link?
posted by dersins at 3:48 PM on April 19, 2013


BobbyVan, your link goes to a Tweet about the missing Brown student.
posted by cooker girl at 3:48 PM on April 19, 2013 [1 favorite]


BobbyVan: That link goes to a tweet about Sunil :/.
posted by youandiandaflame at 3:48 PM on April 19, 2013


Two feeds open now:

http://www.broadcastify.com/listen/feed/13467/web
Cambridge

http://audio4.radioreference.com/732518686
Boston (I think EMS?)
posted by klangklangston at 3:49 PM on April 19, 2013


Is it cool to post the sort of backdoor link to the scanner here (because dersins just requested it) or no?
posted by youandiandaflame at 3:49 PM on April 19, 2013




Bobbyvan, that link goes to a tweet about the missing Brown student.
posted by vrakatar at 3:50 PM on April 19, 2013


Thanks for that Fathers and Sons and Chechnya link, homunculus. Interesting commentary on possible family dynamics:

"In her interview, Maret Tsarnaev seemed to me to say that the father of the two, Anzor Tsarnaev, had worked as an ‘enforcer’ for the Russian authorities, I take it as a policeman or security official. That was the reason, she said, that he had to flee to Kyrgyzstan. That is, far from being rooted in the Muslim fundamentalist wing of the Chechnya rebellion, as many are assuming, the family appears to have been part of the Russian Kadyrov-Putin establishment and opposed to religious radicalism there."
posted by cybercoitus interruptus at 3:50 PM on April 19, 2013 [4 favorites]


Don't worry, someone on Fox News thinks it's important that we remember that torture has been working to keep us safe.

I don't recommend watching Fox, but I'm a glutton for stupidity.
posted by Bulgaroktonos at 3:50 PM on April 19, 2013


Why would it not be?
posted by dersins at 3:50 PM on April 19, 2013


Complaining about how members of govt/law enforcement are doing their job is the American way.
...
the idea that you can't criticize the govt or law enforcement in times of crisis is an extremely dangerous one.


I didn't say that, and I don't believe that. There's a whole lot of space between forbidding it and saying it's the American way. I'd prefer we apply considered support and skepticism as appropriate, rather than being told it's either always complain or always forbid.

But I'm with you in giving thanks, and in not holding law enforcement above criticism.
posted by benito.strauss at 3:51 PM on April 19, 2013


Except when it's used as a short-hand excuse to explain criminal behavior others can't understand. Most criminal behavior is not readily explainable to most people, because most people are law-abiding citizens.

Most people can pretty easily understand most criminal behavior. Crimes of passion, greed and drug use probably account for most crimes, and they are not mysteries. We don't know the motive for these crimes, but if it was "terrorism", I think everyone has become aquatinted with the mindset.

There's no need to insist these people were simply deprived and confused or mentally unstable. People do horrible things for pretty mundane, petty or stupid reasons all the time.
posted by spaltavian at 3:52 PM on April 19, 2013 [1 favorite]


A proper link for BobbyVan's comment.
posted by knapah at 3:52 PM on April 19, 2013 [1 favorite]


Yikes. Here's the corrected link. Maybe a mod can fix. Sorry!
posted by BobbyVan at 3:52 PM on April 19, 2013 [1 favorite]


Out of curiosity, what is the advantage to the police of having a publicly available scanner? If I were a police chief somewhere like Boston, I would be looking at this situation and seriously considering switching to a more secure system.
posted by Bulgaroktonos at 3:52 PM on April 19, 2013


Yeah, actually, they do, with surprising regularity. Making it about a "rational choice" is getting into dubious territory, but trying to frame it all as the revenge of the dispossessed is tenuous.
The results were unambiguous: when income inequality was higher, so was the rate of homicide. Income inequality alone explained 74% of the variance in murder rates and half of the aggravated assaults. However, social capital had an even stronger association and, by itself, accounted for 82% of homicides and 61% of assaults. Other factors such as unemployment, poverty, or number of high school graduates were only weakly associated and alcohol consumption had no connection to violent crime at all. A World Bank sponsored study subsequently confirmed these results on income inequality concluding that, worldwide, homicide and the unequal distribution of resources are inextricably tied.
It's also based on a fair amount of reading, and it meshes well with common sense: if I have secure access to food, shelter, medical care, and opportunities, why would I risk those things to harm someone else? What is my motivation? I don't think it's any coincidence that terrorist groups choose war-torn countries to operate in. For one thing, their dollars go a lot further than they would anywhere else, and for another, the local population (including corruptible law enforcement) is more likely to help them, because they have nothing to lose in the first place.
posted by tripping daisy at 3:53 PM on April 19, 2013 [6 favorites]


Out of curiosity, what is the advantage to the police of having a publicly available scanner?

Milwaukee has an encrypted system... The one they have supposedly doesn't work as well as the old scanner accessible ones.
posted by drezdn at 3:53 PM on April 19, 2013


You can drive out of the hot zone in Watertown now but they will look in the trunk of your car.
posted by bobobox at 3:54 PM on April 19, 2013


dersins: Who knows but I can't tell my ass from my ear at this point, having been immersed in the threads here, at reddit, and everywhere on the internet for 24+ hours so I thought it best to check first.

At any rate, it seems there are other links to feeds posted just slightly upthread so nbd.
posted by youandiandaflame at 3:55 PM on April 19, 2013


Inagist has an interesting set of tweets and other links related to this. I hadn't seen this linked here yet: Apparently Dzokhar Tsarnaev went to a party Wednesday night?!
posted by limeonaire at 3:55 PM on April 19, 2013




Shots fired in Watertown.
posted by klangklangston at 3:57 PM on April 19, 2013 [1 favorite]


Shoots near Arsenal St. heard by CNN. Confirm.
posted by vrakatar at 3:57 PM on April 19, 2013


Shots fired according to CNN?
posted by andruwjones26 at 3:57 PM on April 19, 2013


I don't watch much cable news except during times like this, so I've got two entirely untimely comments to make:

1) The extent to which Twitter is meshed in our culture is infuriating. Headlines with hashtags in them? What world am I living in?

2) Ever since he lost weight Al Sharpton looks like he's come straight of the uncanny valley. I'm glad you're living healthier, Al, but you look bizarre.
posted by Bulgaroktonos at 3:58 PM on April 19, 2013 [1 favorite]


Pete Williams Becomes The Reporting Hero Of The Boston Bombings

He also held the line against the accusations of innocent parties.
posted by FelliniBlank at 3:58 PM on April 19, 2013 [1 favorite]


CNN and NBC reporting shots fired. NBC showing tactical teams deploying.
posted by BobbyVan at 3:58 PM on April 19, 2013


Call for ambulances. :(
posted by mudpuppie at 3:59 PM on April 19, 2013


Did they drop the ban to flush him out?
posted by vrakatar at 3:59 PM on April 19, 2013


That would explain all the sirens and helicopters :(
posted by Elementary Penguin at 4:00 PM on April 19, 2013


Listening to the scanner feed is just insanity.
posted by youandiandaflame at 4:00 PM on April 19, 2013


Also where on Arsenal Street? Arsenal runs through half of town.
posted by Elementary Penguin at 4:00 PM on April 19, 2013


Out of curiosity, what is the advantage to the police of having a publicly available scanner? If I were a police chief somewhere like Boston, I would be looking at this situation and seriously considering switching to a more secure system.

A couple reasons:

1. Interoperability. Say you have a big incident and need a bunch of groups from difference places able to talk to each other. Now make sure they have the same model/software running so that they can effectively communicate.

2. Cost. Want encrypted radios? Prepare to shell out a premium for each one.

3. Reliability. Encrypted radios are more likely to have problems because you need to descramble a digital signal. When you start dropping packets now you start losing big chunks of audio. Analog equipment often works more reliably because often you can still tell what someone says even if it's a bit more garbled.

In the last decade digital technology has made huge strides in both the cost and reliability angles (within the next few years/decade, that'll be a moot point because the cost won't be much more and they'll probably be into a replacement cycle anyway), but you're still looking at a lot of money to replace everyone's analog or basic digital gear with new encrypted digital devices.

They probably also have special encrypted/secure communications otherwise, just not on everyone's shoulders/squad cars, for legit secret info. Or they just use point to point and call people, which is generally not easy/possible to overhear.
posted by chimaera at 4:00 PM on April 19, 2013 [4 favorites]


WCVB: Body found on boat in backyard in Watertown.
posted by ericb at 4:01 PM on April 19, 2013 [1 favorite]


I can't imagine the ban being dropped as a deliberate tactic - too much risk. But they had to know the possibility existed that he'd take the opportunity if still inside the cordon.
posted by drewbage1847 at 4:01 PM on April 19, 2013


Original scanner is back.
posted by mudpuppie at 4:01 PM on April 19, 2013


Does anyone have an updated scanner link? Thanks
posted by andruwjones26 at 4:02 PM on April 19, 2013


Thanks chimaera, I figured there must be a good reason; the downsides to broadcasting everything to everyone was probably pretty apparent even before Reddit decided to start being idiots, but they're being such idiots that it made me curious.
posted by Bulgaroktonos at 4:03 PM on April 19, 2013


This scanner works.
posted by BobbyVan at 4:03 PM on April 19, 2013 [1 favorite]


WCVB: gas to be deployed.

Aerial view of house with boat in the backyard.
posted by ericb at 4:03 PM on April 19, 2013


On the digital radios, it seems like every jurisdiction that switches to them has issues, solves them and then when the fit hits the shan, massive problems coordinating. (Encryption protocols are hard enough to deal with in a calm rational state, when everyone's amped and working with new people - forget it) There's some money to be made in that solution
posted by drewbage1847 at 4:03 PM on April 19, 2013


scanner

tv news live coverage
posted by desjardins at 4:03 PM on April 19, 2013 [1 favorite]


It's the one from the OP.
posted by mudpuppie at 4:03 PM on April 19, 2013






Pot calling the kettle black. I'm loathe to say good things about Reddit after their creepshots/pedos debacle, but ffs, we've had a lot of misinformation and ignorance on display in our own community.
posted by five fresh fish at 4:06 PM on April 19, 2013 [3 favorites]


In the last decade digital technology has made huge strides in both the cost and reliability angles, but you're still looking at a lot of money to replace everyone's analog or basic digital gear with new encrypted digital devices.

Along with that, it costs money to retrain people to use the new systems, which are much more complicated to use properly. IIRC there was some news a few years ago about agencies spending post-9/11 grant money on encrypted, frequency-hopping radios, but using them as regular analog handsets because nobody understood how to use those features.
posted by junco at 4:06 PM on April 19, 2013


Local Boston news is so much better than CNN and MSNBC. I'm flipping through channels ... and such is so obvious.
posted by ericb at 4:08 PM on April 19, 2013


Pretty sure the suspect is sighted and surrounded now.
posted by docjohn at 4:09 PM on April 19, 2013


For what it's worth, the Globe is saying this is him, and they have him "pinned down."
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 4:09 PM on April 19, 2013


Please get this guy alive.
posted by BobbyVan at 4:09 PM on April 19, 2013 [18 favorites]


Along with that, it costs money to retrain people to use the new systems, which are much more complicated to use properly

Keying is a huge issue. A radio with the wrong keystring is useless.
posted by eriko at 4:09 PM on April 19, 2013


Boston police say the lockdown is in place again in Watertown.
posted by alms at 4:11 PM on April 19, 2013


WBUR reports shots fired in Watertown, Franklin & Mount Auburn Street.
posted by alms at 4:11 PM on April 19, 2013


WHDH: Police activity on Franklin Street, Watertown.
posted by ericb at 4:11 PM on April 19, 2013


all seems to be going down now. live video:
http://boston.cbslocal.com/live-video/

http://www1.whdh.com/video/7newslive

Scanner reports he is surrounded but moving.
posted by whyareyouatriangle at 4:12 PM on April 19, 2013


It's not a cemetery. Residential street. And this is the real deal.
posted by bobobox at 4:12 PM on April 19, 2013


The scanner is saying they have him laying down on a boat - he's not moving much, and they have him pinned. They are bringing in the armored vehicles ATM.
posted by Pogo_Fuzzybutt at 4:12 PM on April 19, 2013


FWIW I was a commo Soldier and spent many hours in encrypted FH nets as well as setting up radios, changing keys etc. There's some additional administrative overhead to keep track of that across a theater, but honestly at the lower levels it's not a big deal, and for the most part the infantry would just have their own guys trained to do it.
posted by kavasa at 4:12 PM on April 19, 2013 [1 favorite]


Holy living fuck.
posted by vrakatar at 4:12 PM on April 19, 2013


So the police have somebody cornered in that backyard. If it's him he never got out of the area.
posted by Kevin Street at 4:13 PM on April 19, 2013


Which is to say I think it's probably more an expense/FCC thing than anything else.
posted by kavasa at 4:13 PM on April 19, 2013


Fired gas canisters into boat. Police think this is him, hiding out in a boat...
posted by docjohn at 4:13 PM on April 19, 2013


Let's be clear here: they think they have someone cornered.
posted by FelliniBlank at 4:14 PM on April 19, 2013 [2 favorites]


Three SWAT vehicles now on site.
posted by ericb at 4:15 PM on April 19, 2013


Let's be clear here: they think they have someone cornered.

The alternative is either a 3rd suspect or a random dude with a gun, both of which are worse.
posted by zombieflanders at 4:15 PM on April 19, 2013


Sounds like they are trying hard to take him alive. He may be injured. Blood on the boat.
posted by maggieb at 4:15 PM on April 19, 2013


Fifty favorites for the first person to turn that "Guys, watch your mikes, watch your mikes" into a solid beat.
posted by klangklangston at 4:15 PM on April 19, 2013 [16 favorites]


Now calling for police officers behind the house to move for they are in the line of fire.
posted by whyareyouatriangle at 4:15 PM on April 19, 2013


There are way more alternatives.
posted by FelliniBlank at 4:16 PM on April 19, 2013


What is a "lighting truck" that they're talking about on the scanner?
posted by Dr. Zira at 4:16 PM on April 19, 2013


"Be aware of crossfire situations"…
posted by whyareyouatriangle at 4:17 PM on April 19, 2013


I'm betting it's similar to the ones they use for highway construction or filming, similar to a cherry picker but with a big bank of lights on it that you can use if you don't want to bring a helicopter spotlight in.
posted by klangklangston at 4:18 PM on April 19, 2013


Keep in mind that these folks also had a major memorial service and a hastily arranged presidential visit yesterday morning, which also required massive law enforcement resources to secure.

I've been worrying about the final bill for the city of Boston-- it's going to be massive.
posted by Secret Life of Gravy at 4:18 PM on April 19, 2013


Mod note: Hey, please don't post specific addresses. Thanks.
posted by restless_nomad (staff) at 4:18 PM on April 19, 2013 [1 favorite]


It's crazy that a single person can cause so much havoc and destruction. It's amazing humans ever get anything accomplished.
posted by codacorolla at 4:18 PM on April 19, 2013 [2 favorites]


News channel WHDH confirms it's him in the boat
posted by desjardins at 4:19 PM on April 19, 2013


Google shows that the address previously given has a boat trailer (empty in that photo) in its backyard.
posted by docjohn at 4:19 PM on April 19, 2013


The addresses are being broadcast on the news…
posted by whyareyouatriangle at 4:19 PM on April 19, 2013


For all the crap that BPD, CPD, the Staties and every other PD in Mass gets for their sweet OT deal (hey, manhole cover open - that's a cop) - I cannot for a single moment fathom anyone but skintest of flints begrudging the OT cards this week
posted by drewbage1847 at 4:20 PM on April 19, 2013 [4 favorites]


This is a good live video feed.
posted by mudpuppie at 4:20 PM on April 19, 2013


Boston CBS WBZ showed an overhead shot with a boat in the backyard
posted by maggieb at 4:21 PM on April 19, 2013


If this is it, God Bless everyone who has been putting themselves in harm's way all week, even if it is their job.
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 4:21 PM on April 19, 2013 [4 favorites]


We are going to give the cop who lives across the street from us a gross of cookies. Whatever she wants.
posted by Elementary Penguin at 4:22 PM on April 19, 2013 [6 favorites]


(Don't forget treats for the police dogs!)
posted by scody at 4:23 PM on April 19, 2013 [19 favorites]


I sincerely hope he doesn't kill himself. For many reasons.
posted by desjardins at 4:23 PM on April 19, 2013 [6 favorites]




I'm amazed at the level of calm on the scanner. I'm just sitting here listening safe and sound and am practically peeing my pants.
posted by inertia at 4:23 PM on April 19, 2013


This boat thing.... If you saw it in a movie, you'd dismiss it as implausible. "A BOAT?! You're just fucking with me."
posted by sonika at 4:25 PM on April 19, 2013 [6 favorites]


Be on the lookout for a white Russian.. I'm on it man.
posted by jeffburdges


Epony...close.
posted by evidenceofabsence at 4:25 PM on April 19, 2013 [33 favorites]


@HuffPostMedia: NBC's Pete Williams: 'the telling word here is body. Body found in boat.'
posted by zombieflanders at 4:25 PM on April 19, 2013


If he's spent nineteen hours hiding in a boat, he's probably not going to kill himself now. Might have been killed in that last exchange of gunfire, though.
posted by Kevin Street at 4:25 PM on April 19, 2013


They're taking the top off the boat now...
posted by docjohn at 4:26 PM on April 19, 2013


@HuffPostMedia: NBC's Pete Williams: 'the telling word here is body. Body found in boat.'

They say hes still moving on the scanner.
posted by Pogo_Fuzzybutt at 4:26 PM on April 19, 2013


I hope he's not dead. There's been enough death lately as it is.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 4:27 PM on April 19, 2013 [8 favorites]


"This boat thing.... If you saw it in a movie, you'd dismiss it as implausible. "A BOAT?! You're just fucking with me."

The manhunt for Andrew Cunanan ended on a boat.
posted by Room 641-A at 4:27 PM on April 19, 2013





They're taking the top off the boat now...


how do you know?
posted by ipsative at 4:27 PM on April 19, 2013


Note to self: The next time the local policeman's fund calls asking for donations WRITE CHECK.
posted by Dr. Zira at 4:28 PM on April 19, 2013 [2 favorites]


sonika: "This boat thing.... If you saw it in a movie, you'd dismiss it as implausible. "A BOAT?! You're just fucking with me.""

Swap out "boat" for just about anything and this comment could have been made at any point since last night.
posted by brundlefly at 4:28 PM on April 19, 2013


I haven't seen or heard anything about an ambulance. I see a huge number of cars.
posted by Secret Life of Gravy at 4:28 PM on April 19, 2013


quonsar II: smock fishpants and the temple of foon: "the boat"

That link appears to be broken.
posted by brundlefly at 4:28 PM on April 19, 2013


Whoa. Someone on the video just said she hasn't heard any ambulances.
posted by Secret Life of Gravy at 4:28 PM on April 19, 2013


inertia - I think the calm comes from the fact that time is now on law enforcement's side. They found the guy, it's essentially shifted from a manhunt to stand off. They can take their time to negotiate, move people to safety, etc.

Not to say things are not still incredibly dangerous, but the dynamics are a lot less frenetic.
posted by midmarch snowman at 4:29 PM on April 19, 2013


Ambulance was reported to be rushing to the scene (via CNN)
posted by karst at 4:29 PM on April 19, 2013


I'm going to hell, but when I heard a tall curly haired white guy was on a boat, this is the first thing I thought of
posted by desjardins at 4:29 PM on April 19, 2013 [8 favorites]


Blazecock Pileon: “I hope he's not dead. There's been enough death lately as it is.”

Indeed. And a careful, evidence-based trial would kind of be nice, frankly.
posted by koeselitz at 4:30 PM on April 19, 2013 [13 favorites]


The Boat
posted by smackfu at 4:30 PM on April 19, 2013


Swap out "boat" for just about anything and this comment could have been made at any point since last night

Seriously. At some point after I heard about them throwing bombs at the police chasing them, I thought "2013, the year Michael Bay decided to just start making documentaries."
posted by Bulgaroktonos at 4:30 PM on April 19, 2013 [3 favorites]


Why would an ambulance need it's siren now, with empty streets everywhere?
posted by mountmccabe at 4:30 PM on April 19, 2013


That link appears to be broken.

fixed.
posted by quonsar II: smock fishpants and the temple of foon at 4:30 PM on April 19, 2013


Ambulance was reported to be rushing to the scene (via CNN)

In other words, a hovercraft was seen rushing away from the scene.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 4:31 PM on April 19, 2013 [5 favorites]


I'm so punch drunk from being nervous that I'm stress eating sorbet (I didn't have ice cream) and singing "I'm Under a Boat" in my head.

I'm under a boat and I'm hiding out and I've got a nautical themed pashmina afghan.
posted by sonika at 4:31 PM on April 19, 2013 [2 favorites]


I'm no sailor, but my understanding is that boats parked in backyards are among the less efficient boats in which to make an escape.
posted by evidenceofabsence at 4:31 PM on April 19, 2013 [62 favorites]


Remember all the xenophobia, hatred and jingoism that happened after 9/11? Yeah, it's coming back.

But it never went away.
posted by juiceCake at 4:32 PM on April 19, 2013 [15 favorites]


midmarch snowman--that's a good point. I wasn't listening to the scanner earlier today, so I don't know if things were different.
posted by inertia at 4:32 PM on April 19, 2013


So this boat is in someone's yard? I was picturing water, but then whoever is talking on the video said the neighbor had noticed blood in the boat in the yard.
posted by Secret Life of Gravy at 4:32 PM on April 19, 2013


oh thank god I'm not the only one, sonika
posted by desjardins at 4:32 PM on April 19, 2013 [4 favorites]


tl;dr all of the comments in case this has been covered - if so, sorry! but is there is a map available covering the trail of the suspect on the run? (or, i guess of where the police have been called to and such?) is that possible at this point?
posted by foxhat10 at 4:32 PM on April 19, 2013


I love the WHDH anchor. At one point, the reporter on scene described something, and the anchor immediately goes, "How do you know that?"

Yes, friends, journalism.
posted by FelliniBlank at 4:32 PM on April 19, 2013 [14 favorites]


Apparently the neighbor called it in cause he was looking through the window due to his broken leg and grace Kelly wasn't around,
posted by The Whelk at 4:32 PM on April 19, 2013 [24 favorites]


but my understanding is that boats parked in backyards are among the less efficient boats in which to make an escape.

He's just in the wrong part of the country. In much of the midwest, boats in backyards may be surprisingly effective today.
posted by DevilsAdvocate at 4:33 PM on April 19, 2013 [5 favorites]


The boat is in a yard.
posted by bobobox at 4:33 PM on April 19, 2013


I'm no sailor, but my understanding is that boats parked in backyards are among the less efficient boats in which to make an escape.

That's what Noah said.
posted by wensink at 4:33 PM on April 19, 2013 [2 favorites]


Boats don't work under a foot of fucking snow.
posted by Think_Long at 4:33 PM on April 19, 2013 [1 favorite]


Boat in someone's yard -- here's a pic from Bing based on info given out over the scanner I think, no address just a screencap: http://i.imgur.com/uYKzBRk.jpg
posted by zempf at 4:33 PM on April 19, 2013


Yes, the boat is in a person's backyard, on a boat trailer. It's covered in a standard white boat covering. No movement is being reported on the boat.
posted by docjohn at 4:33 PM on April 19, 2013


a hovercraft was seen rushing away from the scene

full of eels, no doubt

posted by scody at 4:33 PM on April 19, 2013 [18 favorites]


I did actually see the ambulance drive toward the scene on NBC's live video of the area. I assume, since the police said there was blood on the boat, that the suspect is injured, perhaps from the previous firefight, or maybe from the one that just happened.
posted by BlueJae at 4:34 PM on April 19, 2013


yes, the boat is in someone's yard. https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BIQCpP3CAAEHuOy.png:large
posted by whyareyouatriangle at 4:34 PM on April 19, 2013




I'm so punch drunk from being nervous that I'm stress eating sorbet (I didn't have ice cream) and singing "I'm Under a Boat" in my head.

Imbibing sweet red wine. Watching CNN obsessively (we have minimal cable, so our options are limited).

Seriously considering going to volunteer for the Pittsburgh marathon, just to show the bastards that they can't make me afraid.

And hoping he is taken alive.
posted by theBigRedKittyPurrs at 4:34 PM on April 19, 2013 [1 favorite]


so if that's where he is, that's not too far from the Charles, but is that a school just to the south near the river?
posted by drewbage1847 at 4:34 PM on April 19, 2013


Seymour, if this now turns into a high-speed boat chase, it's on you!
posted by FelliniBlank at 4:34 PM on April 19, 2013


What kind of boat on a trailer do you need a ladder to get into, anyway? A normal sized motor boat can be climbed into pretty easily without a ladder.
posted by Bulgaroktonos at 4:35 PM on April 19, 2013


"we have no movement" now being reported…
posted by whyareyouatriangle at 4:35 PM on April 19, 2013


I love the WHDH anchor. At one point, the reporter on scene described something, and the anchor immediately goes, "How do you know that?"

Yes, friends, journalism.


The need for constant talk (and constant ratings) during situations like this is one major factor that's making journalism go down the crapper. They should really only report when there's something new to report. Now they're starting to feel like they have to verify things early, and/or make things up.
posted by Malice at 4:35 PM on April 19, 2013 [3 favorites]


My daughter called me today to say she and her boyfriend are building an adult fort in their living room and not coming out until it's safe. If she didn't live 8 hours away, I'd be joining her. WTF.
posted by Space Kitty at 4:35 PM on April 19, 2013 [9 favorites]


This is insane and gives me a creepy Running Man feeling.
posted by vrakatar at 4:35 PM on April 19, 2013 [4 favorites]


Bulgaroktonos: "What kind of boat on a trailer do you need a ladder to get into, anyway? A normal sized motor boat can be climbed into pretty easily without a ladder."

Not if you're injured.
posted by brundlefly at 4:36 PM on April 19, 2013


What kind of boat on a trailer do you need a ladder to get into, anyway

Lobster boat. Or really any kind of larger pleasure boat. Mid-sized boats are pretty common here and are often stored in yards or driveways (usually shrink-wrapped, tho) when not in use.
posted by anastasiav at 4:36 PM on April 19, 2013 [2 favorites]


This is like a 20' or 24' boat, not a motor or row boat. Yes, on a trailer, you would need a ladder to get onto it. They're putting flood lights next to the boat to check it out now...
posted by docjohn at 4:36 PM on April 19, 2013


"we have no movement" now being reported…

I think that just means what it says, because they are trying to move around the yard and don't want to get shot at.
posted by smackfu at 4:36 PM on April 19, 2013


The Perkins School for the Blind is south of him; it's gorgeous and full of publicly open playgrounds.
posted by Elementary Penguin at 4:36 PM on April 19, 2013


NBC Nightly News has pretty good live video going on right now if you want to get your news from a non-CNN source (not that NBC is all that much better, but it's not hard to be somewhat better than CNN right now).
posted by BlueJae at 4:36 PM on April 19, 2013


So this boat is in someone's yard? I was picturing water ...

Here in New England (and elsewhere) folks store their boats in their backyard with a cover during the winter months.
posted by ericb at 4:36 PM on April 19, 2013 [1 favorite]


the boat
posted by quonsar II:



Street view of that address
posted by lampshade at 4:36 PM on April 19, 2013 [1 favorite]


Some radio station (WBZ) is saying the police tracked him down using thermal imaging from a helicopter.
posted by Kevin Street at 4:37 PM on April 19, 2013


My neighbor's pleasure boat on trailer is probably 10 feet high?
posted by FelliniBlank at 4:37 PM on April 19, 2013


In a day of WTFs, I can honestly say that the weirdest thing to me is that he went back to school after bombing people and went to a party. That is.....insane.
posted by Secret Life of Gravy at 4:37 PM on April 19, 2013 [4 favorites]


"We have eyes on, negative movement, negative movement"
posted by quonsar II: smock fishpants and the temple of foon at 4:38 PM on April 19, 2013


We are not so far from the day when those street views will be updated in real time.
posted by feloniousmonk at 4:39 PM on April 19, 2013


now reporting that he just sat up in the boat.
posted by whyareyouatriangle at 4:39 PM on April 19, 2013


he sat up and is moving
posted by FelliniBlank at 4:39 PM on April 19, 2013


He is moving.
posted by mudpuppie at 4:39 PM on April 19, 2013


Why would they lift the lockdown just before they flew over the town with thermal imaging?

I'm not alleging any kind of crazy conspiracy, but every single thing about this whole thing is just ... weird.
posted by pokermonk at 4:40 PM on April 19, 2013 [1 favorite]


"He just sat up, flailing about"
posted by quonsar II: smock fishpants and the temple of foon at 4:40 PM on April 19, 2013


"Movement in the boat. He just sat up."
posted by zsazsa at 4:40 PM on April 19, 2013


"We have movement, he just sat up, quite a bit of flailing about."
posted by youandiandaflame at 4:40 PM on April 19, 2013


And now they just said he sat up & is "flailing about." Crazy.
posted by zempf at 4:40 PM on April 19, 2013


Near fuel tank.
posted by Feisty at 4:40 PM on April 19, 2013


Now that the tot's in bed, we're turning on the TV. It's already on MSNBC as the last time I turned on the cable was for the election.
posted by sonika at 4:40 PM on April 19, 2013 [1 favorite]


Full forty gallon tank in/on the boat? I just heard maybe.
posted by lizarrd at 4:40 PM on April 19, 2013


boy, y'all are way ahead of CBS Boston ... is this from the scanner?
posted by desjardins at 4:41 PM on April 19, 2013 [1 favorite]


jesus can't somebody just drop a net over him
posted by angrycat at 4:41 PM on April 19, 2013 [4 favorites]


Wow, 200k viewers on that scanner stream.
posted by smackfu at 4:41 PM on April 19, 2013 [1 favorite]


The person in the boat sat up.
posted by sammyo at 4:41 PM on April 19, 2013


From the scanner, yes.
posted by lyra4 at 4:41 PM on April 19, 2013


this is from scanner. come to chat
posted by wikipedia brown boy detective at 4:41 PM on April 19, 2013


"rear of the boat"
Dude. It's called aft. Come on...
posted by Big_B at 4:41 PM on April 19, 2013 [15 favorites]


(How do they know it's full??)
posted by mudpuppie at 4:41 PM on April 19, 2013


This is probably a dumb question, but is there a reason you wouldn't fire a tranquilizer dart at him?
posted by codacorolla at 4:41 PM on April 19, 2013 [3 favorites]


his brother was wearing an explosive device, wasn't he?
posted by FelliniBlank at 4:42 PM on April 19, 2013


This is probably a dumb question, but is there a reason you wouldn't fire a tranquilizer dart at him?

Can't get safely close enough, bombs.
posted by vrakatar at 4:42 PM on April 19, 2013


Or tasers, which would at least be more common.
posted by klangklangston at 4:42 PM on April 19, 2013


If you were worried he had a deadman's switch wired to explosives, you'd have to be very careful how you put him down.
posted by drezdn at 4:43 PM on April 19, 2013


Can someone post the chat address?
posted by anastasiav at 4:43 PM on April 19, 2013


mudpuppie - owner told them?
posted by desjardins at 4:43 PM on April 19, 2013


Tank is half full. Inside of stern.
posted by Feisty at 4:43 PM on April 19, 2013


Would a dart be instant? He may still be armed and not take too kindly to a dart.
posted by brundlefly at 4:43 PM on April 19, 2013


(How do they know it's full??)
posted by mudpuppie at 6:41 PM on April 19 [+] [!]


I can only guess it's because they asked the owner of the boat and they just corrected and said HALF full.
posted by lizarrd at 4:43 PM on April 19, 2013


chat.metafilter.com
posted by youandiandaflame at 4:43 PM on April 19, 2013


I guess I figured the effective range of those was a lot further than it probably is. That makes sense.
posted by codacorolla at 4:43 PM on April 19, 2013


Yes, they're concerned he's also wearing a possible explosive vest or something, so are proceeding very carefully and slowly.
posted by docjohn at 4:43 PM on April 19, 2013 [1 favorite]


The one guy who's coming in on the radio talking about where he is must be in the helicopter, he mentioned "the biggest mass we can see" which I assume is an infrared camera.
posted by zempf at 4:43 PM on April 19, 2013


Yeah, guy on WHDH suggested he's bleeding out, but they're clearing the area in case he has explosives on him.
posted by neroli at 4:43 PM on April 19, 2013


chat.metafilter.com
posted by desjardins at 4:43 PM on April 19, 2013 [2 favorites]


chat.metafilter.com
posted by ocherdraco at 4:43 PM on April 19, 2013


Flipping through local and cable news ... none of them are reporting the 'sitting up' angle, yet.
posted by ericb at 4:43 PM on April 19, 2013


Fire on the boat.
posted by docjohn at 4:44 PM on April 19, 2013


Something I learned today: People use Bing.

I did not know that.
posted by benito.strauss at 4:44 PM on April 19, 2013 [29 favorites]


"HRT says not to light the boat up just yet"

"we have a couple conflicting plans…"

"HRT moving in to execute an assault plan"
posted by whyareyouatriangle at 4:44 PM on April 19, 2013


Probably the owner just giving them a heads up that the boat has a full tank of gas. And is made of fiberglass. A crap load of bullets through it might be problematic.
posted by Big_B at 4:44 PM on April 19, 2013


oh christ
posted by FelliniBlank at 4:45 PM on April 19, 2013


Fire or flame in the boat
posted by quonsar II: smock fishpants and the temple of foon at 4:45 PM on April 19, 2013


I bet he's going to try to start it on fire.
posted by Pogo_Fuzzybutt at 4:45 PM on April 19, 2013


Scanner just mentioned a fire on the boat, which is not something I was expecting to hear.
posted by Bulgaroktonos at 4:45 PM on April 19, 2013


They do know the whole internet can listen in on these radio feeds right? They're giving out really detailed blow-by-blow info about exactly what they're planning to do. Granted I doubt the suspect is following a whole lot of twitter right now but damn.
posted by passerby at 4:45 PM on April 19, 2013




Musco light truck. Effectively turns night into day.
posted by Purposeful Grimace at 4:46 PM on April 19, 2013


flare?
posted by TWinbrook8 at 4:46 PM on April 19, 2013


Oh good flashbangs. That worked well in the Dorner case.
posted by Big_B at 4:46 PM on April 19, 2013


They just said the FBI was throwing in a flashbang grenade and not to be alarmed.
posted by klangklangston at 4:46 PM on April 19, 2013


Does the boat have a twitter account yet?
posted by drezdn at 4:46 PM on April 19, 2013 [16 favorites]


Following this entirely on mefi as I'm not near a tv or radio. It's riveting.
posted by double bubble at 4:47 PM on April 19, 2013 [1 favorite]


At this point I don't think they're worried about him reading the transcripts.
posted by Elementary Penguin at 4:47 PM on April 19, 2013 [3 favorites]


"Maintain radio silence."
posted by klangklangston at 4:47 PM on April 19, 2013


HRT is the shit.
posted by RedShrek at 4:47 PM on April 19, 2013 [1 favorite]


WHDH has iPhone video of the gunshots - hail of bullets. Might have been nonlethal rounds.
posted by robocop is bleeding at 4:47 PM on April 19, 2013


passerby: "They do know the whole internet can listen in on these radio feeds right? They're giving out really detailed blow-by-blow info about exactly what they're planning to do. Granted I doubt the suspect is following a whole lot of twitter right now but damn."

That would probably explain why several of the bigger feeds - tunein, scannerradio, etc - are showing the feed is down. One actually had a message saying it had been taken down based on a request made by law enforcement.
posted by Big_B at 4:48 PM on April 19, 2013


Did they just say "we have him" ??!?!?! That's what it sounded like!
posted by phunniemee at 4:48 PM on April 19, 2013


What's HRT stand for?
posted by mudpuppie at 4:49 PM on April 19, 2013


Although HOURS old now, I heard a radio interview on NPR with a Boston-area garage owner who had once employed the suspects' father.

Man, they are just filling time. I have never heard a more useless interview in my life.
posted by GuyZero at 11:25 AM on April 19


On my drive home 10 minutes ago, NPR was talking to a person who lived in Watertown, and she "reported" what she saw from the 3rd floor of her house. She said she couldn't see the action because another house was blocking the view, but she saw a lot of police cars and "those big vans that carry a lot of people" (she didn't know the official name, she said), and she had heard "like 20 gun shots." When asked about the possible boat connection, she said that she didn't know of any boats in the neighborhood, but knew an open lot which could house a boat, and maybe it had a boat there in the past.

In short, NPR is filling time, just like everyone else. Except they've sunken to taking calls from "citizen journalists" who are just guessing and making things up. At least the real NPR reporters were good enough to say "people think there is a stand-off in the area" instead of confirming it based on vague comments like this one.
posted by filthy light thief at 4:49 PM on April 19, 2013 [1 favorite]


Hostage Rescue Team (HRT)
posted by RedShrek at 4:49 PM on April 19, 2013


Hostage Response Team
posted by Big_B at 4:49 PM on April 19, 2013


Sound of shots.
posted by ericb at 4:50 PM on April 19, 2013


Hostage rescue team, I think.
posted by Bulgaroktonos at 4:50 PM on April 19, 2013


I'm watching on Al Jazeera English.
posted by sweetkid at 4:50 PM on April 19, 2013


They already had ERTH FR WND & WTR standing by
posted by 2bucksplus at 4:51 PM on April 19, 2013 [6 favorites]


I really liked the interview they did a few minutes ago on WCBV with the guy in Watertown, though. He said he'd been stuck inside all day, so he decided to go to Domino's, and there was gunfire. So he ran the rest of the way, ducked into the Domino's, and ordered a large.
posted by koeselitz at 4:51 PM on April 19, 2013 [24 favorites]


The police seem very calm as what sounds like gunfire goes off.
posted by Bookhouse at 4:51 PM on April 19, 2013


Man, for my job, this has been an awesome day to find out that the Boy Scouts are likely dropping their gay scout ban. WAY TO MEDIA DUMP, BSA! WELL PLAYED
posted by klangklangston at 4:51 PM on April 19, 2013 [7 favorites]


They do know the whole internet can listen in on these radio feeds right?

It's multiple agencies working together, they probably only have one common radio system.
posted by smackfu at 4:51 PM on April 19, 2013


WCVB: "Two quick pops ... and another one ... and another one ... two more loud bangs."
posted by ericb at 4:51 PM on April 19, 2013


Apparently no, no they did not. "No movement from suspect" last I heard.
posted by phunniemee at 4:51 PM on April 19, 2013


Oooo, I just heard gunshots. The main scene is now about 1.25 miles away from my apartment.
posted by not_on_display at 4:51 PM on April 19, 2013 [1 favorite]


Except they've sunken to taking calls from "citizen journalists" who are just guessing and making things up.

heh...as opposed to most of the cable news networks who hire people to guess and make stuff up?

I know what you mean though. It is just that the news networks have been about 1% reporting and 99% conjecture through this whole thing.
posted by lampshade at 4:52 PM on April 19, 2013 [1 favorite]


.5 miles away i only really hear the choppers.
posted by Elementary Penguin at 4:53 PM on April 19, 2013


WHDH reporting "flashes of light", probably flashbangs, maybe the Looker weapon.
posted by vrakatar at 4:53 PM on April 19, 2013 [2 favorites]


They do know the whole internet can listen in on these radio feeds right? They're giving out really detailed blow-by-blow info about exactly what they're planning to do. Granted I doubt the suspect is following a whole lot of twitter right now but damn.

They are well aware. The higher priority is ensuring that all law enforcement on the scene has the same basic vital information immediately (e.g. flashbangs are going in, don't open fire when you hear the loud boom). Given the number of different agencies involved (Boston Police, Mass. State Police, FBI, ATF, etc...) and the different teams within those agencies on the scene, I'm sure that they'd rather run the risk of tipping the subject off about certain information (while maintaining radio silence where possible) then have everyone not talking to each other.

Clear unencrypted classic radio communications are the best way and most reliable to ensure that.

My understanding is that SWAT teams do generally use encrypted tactical radios for communications amongst themselves for exactly this reason though.
posted by zachlipton at 4:53 PM on April 19, 2013 [1 favorite]


Watching the live video, listening to the pops of gunfire. They have to be trying really hard to capture him alive, because there's no way a possibly wounded 19 year old kid in a boat would still be alive and causing some sort of gunfire to happen if they were fine with just outright killing him.
posted by kavasa at 4:53 PM on April 19, 2013


Well, thank God you've been able to keep up with Facebook scrabble, though
posted by klangklangston at 4:53 PM on April 19, 2013 [1 favorite]


Nothing has happened yet, he's cornered and no one else is in danger. There's no reason to do anything but wait for him to surrender.
posted by Kevin Street at 4:53 PM on April 19, 2013


Did they just say "thinking about negotiation?"
posted by celare at 4:54 PM on April 19, 2013


I keep reading that as HST...hostile sub-terrestrial.
posted by double bubble at 4:54 PM on April 19, 2013 [1 favorite]


(Which is not to say that he's not going to end up dead if he's determined to go out that way.)
posted by kavasa at 4:54 PM on April 19, 2013


The reporters on WCVB are just begging each other to speculate right now.
posted by Bookhouse at 4:55 PM on April 19, 2013


no movement in some time.
posted by Pogo_Fuzzybutt at 4:56 PM on April 19, 2013


"No further movement in the boat."
posted by docjohn at 4:56 PM on April 19, 2013


Two flashbangs, bow of boat, no further movement.
posted by zerobyproxy at 4:56 PM on April 19, 2013


Requests for headlights to be shut off. Interesting.
posted by kinnakeet at 4:57 PM on April 19, 2013


Hmmm, maybe I didn't hear gunshots -- power of suggestion, I hear what sounds like an 18-wheeler going over a big pothole at the same time some reporter says "I heard gunshots." If Elementary Penguin heard nothing, I defer to them, they're closer than I am at this point, I believe.
posted by not_on_display at 4:57 PM on April 19, 2013


He's on his back - Scanner
posted by RedShrek at 4:58 PM on April 19, 2013


Negative movement, on his back.
posted by klangklangston at 4:58 PM on April 19, 2013


zachlipton - Yeah that makes a lot of sense. It just feels bizarre as a random internet person to have this level of information about whats going on. I have no doubt whatsoever they know what they're doing.
posted by passerby at 4:58 PM on April 19, 2013 [1 favorite]


Is it possible the guy has a hostage? No one has suggested that, but it would explain the holding back.
posted by neroli at 4:58 PM on April 19, 2013


I think they just want to be very careful and try and ensure he doesn't blow himself up (assuming he even has some sort of suicide vest on).
posted by docjohn at 4:59 PM on April 19, 2013


I would think the IR imaging could distinguish one person from two.
posted by DevilsAdvocate at 5:00 PM on April 19, 2013


Hostage or booby trap. Other than that...
posted by vrakatar at 5:00 PM on April 19, 2013


Pete Williams says they're moving in now, "they're assaulting that boat."
posted by BobbyVan at 5:00 PM on April 19, 2013


Scanner has said nothing about hostages, and it sounds like hasn't moved in a while. I think this is just "he might blow himself up" caution.
posted by Bulgaroktonos at 5:00 PM on April 19, 2013


They're holding back because he may have boobie trapped himself or the boat with explosives.
posted by chrchr at 5:01 PM on April 19, 2013 [1 favorite]


Please please please take him alive.
posted by klangklangston at 5:01 PM on April 19, 2013 [37 favorites]


Negotiator on site....Scanner.
posted by zerobyproxy at 5:02 PM on April 19, 2013 [1 favorite]


They are just being very careful because they're afraid he has a lot of explosives still with him. Combined with the half-full boat gas tank, and...
posted by docjohn at 5:02 PM on April 19, 2013


If he had a hostage he wouldn't be in a boat outside. That's somewhere someone would hide, not where they would take a hostage to make a stand.
posted by burnmp3s at 5:03 PM on April 19, 2013


40 gallons of gas on the boat.
posted by neroli at 5:03 PM on April 19, 2013


they are certainly trying to
posted by edgeways at 5:03 PM on April 19, 2013


Negotiator. Good news. Presumably they do want to take him alive.
posted by karst at 5:03 PM on April 19, 2013


Requests for headlights to be shut off. Interesting.

They're using FLIR.
posted by smoothvirus at 5:03 PM on April 19, 2013


40 gallons of gas on the boat.

20 gallons - its only half full.
posted by Pogo_Fuzzybutt at 5:03 PM on April 19, 2013


Man, that negotiator is a wicked brave dude.
posted by mudpuppie at 5:04 PM on April 19, 2013 [3 favorites]


According to here, Code 22 = restricted radio traffic
posted by mediated self at 5:05 PM on April 19, 2013


20 gallons - its only half full.

so you're an optimist
posted by desjardins at 5:05 PM on April 19, 2013 [19 favorites]


Movement
posted by Feisty at 5:05 PM on April 19, 2013 [1 favorite]


20 gallons - its only half full.

Some would say it's half empty.
posted by drezdn at 5:05 PM on April 19, 2013


They have movement.
posted by SpecialK at 5:06 PM on April 19, 2013


"arm movement"
posted by scody at 5:06 PM on April 19, 2013


FLIR in case anyone else doesn't know what that means.
posted by annsunny at 5:06 PM on April 19, 2013


Poor Microsoft. NBC just showed a Bing-based picture of the boat, complete with logo, and Brian Williams called it a Google Earth picture.
posted by dirigibleman at 5:06 PM on April 19, 2013 [40 favorites]


I'm hoping the fact that he's still alive 20 hours after this started means he wants to stay alive.
posted by FelliniBlank at 5:06 PM on April 19, 2013 [1 favorite]


NBC news is showing the boat in a screen shot with a huge Bing label and continually referring to it as Goigle Maps.
posted by CheeseDigestsAll at 5:06 PM on April 19, 2013 [2 favorites]


Homeowner came home and found a hole cut in the boat's shrink wrap, and blood around it. He called police. Police came and then they were fired on by the person on the boat. They returned fire.
posted by docjohn at 5:06 PM on April 19, 2013 [2 favorites]


He could've gone out with his brother.
posted by FelliniBlank at 5:06 PM on April 19, 2013


But it's the middle half.
posted by Pogo_Fuzzybutt at 5:07 PM on April 19, 2013 [1 favorite]


What scanner feed is still working for you all? Please post, this is my only link to keep my family in the loop. Thanks!
posted by rollbiz at 5:07 PM on April 19, 2013


Tank is half full. Inside of stern.

It may seem half full to you, but it looks half empty to me.

On preview, desjardins beat me to it.
posted by vac2003 at 5:07 PM on April 19, 2013


They're using FLIR.

Also, they said the headlights were backlighting the cops closer to the scene, which exposes them tot he suspect.
posted by smackfu at 5:07 PM on April 19, 2013




They can "light it up" if they get a "substantial distance" away
posted by mediated self at 5:07 PM on April 19, 2013


I'm using this scanner now.
posted by BobbyVan at 5:08 PM on April 19, 2013




This works for me.
posted by Bulgaroktonos at 5:08 PM on April 19, 2013


Scanner Link.
posted by spinifex23 at 5:08 PM on April 19, 2013


A hall-full gas tank is more explosive than a full one.
posted by PareidoliaticBoy at 5:08 PM on April 19, 2013 [4 favorites]


http://www.ustream.tv/channel/ma-rt-9-window-cam?utm_campaign=t.co&utm_source=6807252&utm_medium=social
posted by RedShrek at 5:08 PM on April 19, 2013


Going to try to light up the boat when police can move out of the way.
posted by zerobyproxy at 5:08 PM on April 19, 2013


I'm pretty sure someone on the scanner just said "aft" and then got a response about the "rear" of the boat. I'd like to think this is for officers to be pedants about boat terminology.
posted by Bulgaroktonos at 5:09 PM on April 19, 2013 [3 favorites]


This should be a lesson to cop show writers that you can actually heighten the tension with silence and little, incremental moves.
posted by klangklangston at 5:09 PM on April 19, 2013 [12 favorites]




"Light the boat up with the night sun"
posted by mediated self at 5:10 PM on April 19, 2013


"Got a visual on him now."
posted by klangklangston at 5:10 PM on April 19, 2013


Thanks, can't get it to update on either my phone or iPad. :(

Appreciate the updates.
posted by rollbiz at 5:10 PM on April 19, 2013 [2 favorites]


They're going to use the "sun"-- I assume the helicopter?
posted by celare at 5:10 PM on April 19, 2013


WHDH: neighbor noticed that the boat's winter plastic wrap had a hole with traces of blood. Calls police. They arrive and engage with the suspect. They lobby flash granades into the boat. Learn from the home/boat owner that there is a 40 gallon gas tank full in the boat. Authorities are concerned that the suspect has explosives with him in addition to firearms.
posted by ericb at 5:11 PM on April 19, 2013 [4 favorites]


Did I just hear "Light up the boat with the night sun?"
posted by Hey Dean Yeager! at 5:11 PM on April 19, 2013 [2 favorites]


Maybe the internet can take up a collection and help the boat guy replace his boat.
posted by ThePinkSuperhero at 5:11 PM on April 19, 2013 [3 favorites]


rollbiz: the ustream stopped working on my iPad, but it's working on my computer just fine.
posted by inertia at 5:11 PM on April 19, 2013


A Nightsun is a model (and generic term for) of helicopter mounted ultra-high-intensity searchlight. They are insanely bright.
posted by zachlipton at 5:11 PM on April 19, 2013 [8 favorites]


All this slowness and caution is actually a bit reassuring to me. It feels normal and... realistic. In contrast to the over the top ridiculousness of the past day.
posted by brundlefly at 5:11 PM on April 19, 2013 [6 favorites]


I wish the FBI could just give him one of those boats from a drug seizure that is twice as big as his boat.
posted by Dr. Zira at 5:11 PM on April 19, 2013 [6 favorites]


Nightsun
posted by smackfu at 5:12 PM on April 19, 2013


The police sure seem to be taking huge efforts not to kill the guy - it feels like they could have killed him a dozen times already, both last night and right now, if they were willing to. I wonder if there are orders from higher up to take him alive, perhaps so he can be interrogated?
posted by Mitrovarr at 5:12 PM on April 19, 2013


today is a win for nosy neighbors everywhere!
posted by raztaj at 5:12 PM on April 19, 2013 [2 favorites]




This could go on for hours. If we could hear that guy's thoughts right now it's probably a continuous loop of "NO NO NO NO NO NO." He's just hiding from reality at this point.
posted by Kevin Street at 5:12 PM on April 19, 2013 [4 favorites]


I'm going to hell, but when I heard a tall curly haired white guy was on a boat, this is the first thing I thought of

The first person I thought of was Dan Shaughnessy.
posted by A dead Quaker at 5:12 PM on April 19, 2013 [3 favorites]


"We have a problem with your downlink being broadcast on the internet"
posted by mediated self at 5:13 PM on April 19, 2013 [3 favorites]


"We also have an issue with your downlink. It's being broadcast on the internet."
posted by klangklangston at 5:13 PM on April 19, 2013 [2 favorites]


We have an issue with your downlink. It's being broadcast on the internet.
posted by celare at 5:13 PM on April 19, 2013 [2 favorites]


"we have an issue with your downlink, it's being broadcast on the internet."
posted by quonsar II: smock fishpants and the temple of foon at 5:13 PM on April 19, 2013 [2 favorites]


Mitrovarr they need him alive. So many questions right now.
posted by estlin at 5:13 PM on April 19, 2013


NBC: Fire on the boat. But no activity on the street.
posted by CheeseDigestsAll at 5:13 PM on April 19, 2013


Theyre gonna terminate the scanner link, seems like
posted by not_on_display at 5:13 PM on April 19, 2013


what are they saying about the internet on the scanner?
posted by desjardins at 5:13 PM on April 19, 2013


Aww... terminating the downlink on the scanner soon, I think
posted by tyllwin at 5:14 PM on April 19, 2013


Is there a problem with the downlink ?
posted by Pogo_Fuzzybutt at 5:14 PM on April 19, 2013 [5 favorites]


That it's for porn, mostly.
posted by klangklangston at 5:14 PM on April 19, 2013


Scanner about to go away. "they are broadcasting this on the internet"
posted by zerobyproxy at 5:14 PM on April 19, 2013


Oh please don't kill the internet scanner feed!
posted by Slack-a-gogo at 5:14 PM on April 19, 2013


MetaFilter: We have an issue with your downlink It's being broadcast on the internet
posted by mazola at 5:14 PM on April 19, 2013 [43 favorites]


Did I just hear "Light up the boat with the night sun?"

I think that's my next album title.
posted by The Great Big Mulp at 5:14 PM on April 19, 2013 [9 favorites]


Downlink is a video link. It allows guys on the ground to see what the guys in the air can see.
posted by RedShrek at 5:14 PM on April 19, 2013 [1 favorite]


what are they saying about the internet on the scanner?

It was not "they're here to help" that's for sure.
posted by Big_B at 5:14 PM on April 19, 2013 [7 favorites]


I think that just means we won't be hearing the chopper anymore. It sounded like he only has 10 more minutes of fuel anyway.
posted by jjwiseman at 5:14 PM on April 19, 2013


shh shhh shhhhh everyone post the links from the scanner more quietly
posted by The corpse in the library at 5:15 PM on April 19, 2013 [24 favorites]


Maybe it's because I've seen too many cop movies, but can't they get a negotiator who can talk the kid down? Can't they bring in his relatives to talk to the kid and get him to give up? Instead their bright idea is to throw flashbangs at him and shine bright lights on him?
posted by banished at 5:15 PM on April 19, 2013


I coulda been watching this from the copter?
posted by klangklangston at 5:15 PM on April 19, 2013 [3 favorites]


earlier they were talking about "switching to the bureau". probably moving it to fed frequencies.
posted by quonsar II: smock fishpants and the temple of foon at 5:15 PM on April 19, 2013 [1 favorite]


S'mores?

(sorry)
posted by FelliniBlank at 5:16 PM on April 19, 2013


When they heard the suspect was on a boat, you know the Coast Guard guys were like, "Now's our chance to shine!"
posted by drezdn at 5:16 PM on April 19, 2013 [25 favorites]


"Why on earth would he start a small fire on the boat?"

He ain't eatin' marshmallows raw. He's not an animal.
posted by klangklangston at 5:16 PM on April 19, 2013 [13 favorites]


Well, we've heard from his relatives . . .
posted by Countess Elena at 5:16 PM on April 19, 2013 [1 favorite]


It would be so awesome if someone bust in with "set phasers to stun."
Come on nerd cops, you know you are out there. Do it!
posted by Big_B at 5:16 PM on April 19, 2013 [2 favorites]


"S'mores?

(sorry)
"

LOL

BIRTHDAY DUO HIGH FIVE
posted by klangklangston at 5:16 PM on April 19, 2013


That neighbor story makes me queasy, because I know if I even bothered to notice my neighbor had a boat, let alone there was something funny about it, I'd just go "oh huh there's a hole in that boat-wrap wonder if it's leaking lemme just wander over there to look and" KABOOM.
posted by nicebookrack at 5:16 PM on April 19, 2013


NBC, Helicopter report says suspect is covered in blood. Possibly from firefight last night.
posted by CheeseDigestsAll at 5:16 PM on April 19, 2013


I've never listened to a scanner until about 5 minutes ago. I'm amazed at how calm everyone sounds.
posted by tryniti at 5:17 PM on April 19, 2013


Maybe it's because I've seen too many cop movies, but they can't get a negotiator who can talk the kid down?

Probably worried about getting a negotiator blown up/shot, though I wonder if they would send one in a bomb proof suit.
posted by drezdn at 5:17 PM on April 19, 2013


Instead their bright idea is to throw flashbangs at him and shine bright lights on him?

Then they start cranking The Clash's cover of "I Fought the Law."
posted by kirkaracha at 5:17 PM on April 19, 2013 [3 favorites]


Over quarter of a million listening online at ustream.
posted by Jehan at 5:17 PM on April 19, 2013 [1 favorite]


"When they heard the suspect was on a boat, you know the Coast Guard guys were like, "Now's our chance to shine!""

Dude got Cool Papa Bell all wrong.
posted by klangklangston at 5:17 PM on April 19, 2013 [14 favorites]


Why on earth would he start a small fire on the boat?

Cold, probably.
posted by Alvy Ampersand at 5:17 PM on April 19, 2013 [2 favorites]


MSNBC reporting the boat, the boat, the boat is on fire.
posted by sonika at 5:18 PM on April 19, 2013 [10 favorites]


Probably worried about getting a negotiator blown up/shot, though I wonder if they would send one in a bomb proof suit.

That's what the Megaphone is for!
posted by banished at 5:18 PM on April 19, 2013


Do we need any water, or do we let the motherfucker burn?
posted by Elementary Penguin at 5:18 PM on April 19, 2013 [8 favorites]


Would he like some water, or should the motherfucker burn?
posted by klangklangston at 5:18 PM on April 19, 2013 [3 favorites]


When they heard the suspect was on a boat, you know the Coast Guard guys were like, "Now's our chance to shine!"

Paging Cool Papa Bell. Pick up the courtesy phone please, Cool Papa Bell.
posted by youandiandaflame at 5:19 PM on April 19, 2013 [15 favorites]


*high-fives klangklangston*
posted by Elementary Penguin at 5:19 PM on April 19, 2013 [1 favorite]


an older pic of the boat
posted by inigo2 at 5:19 PM on April 19, 2013 [1 favorite]


I have a hard time believing that he'll be alive at the end of all this...
posted by jokeefe at 5:20 PM on April 19, 2013


Let the motherfucker burn. Burn. Motherfucker, burn. (Someone had to say it)
posted by tyllwin at 5:20 PM on April 19, 2013


Agreed jokeefe.
posted by zerobyproxy at 5:20 PM on April 19, 2013


We don't need no water, apparently.
posted by Earl the Polliwog at 5:20 PM on April 19, 2013


watch your mike watch your mic
posted by kinnakeet at 5:21 PM on April 19, 2013 [1 favorite]


OPEN MIKE night!
posted by zerobyproxy at 5:21 PM on April 19, 2013


Let the motherfucker burn. Burn. Motherfucker, burn. (Someone had to say it)

Really unnecessary.
posted by ipsative at 5:21 PM on April 19, 2013 [42 favorites]


Mike sure seems to be causing a lot of trouble right now. Watch your Mike, dude.
posted by chimaera at 5:21 PM on April 19, 2013


He became a naturalized citizen... On Sept. 11th (NBC)
posted by hal9k at 5:22 PM on April 19, 2013 [1 favorite]


Hey, watch the open mike (any cop that's monitoring mifi)
posted by sammyo at 5:22 PM on April 19, 2013


watch your mike watch your mic

Flashbacks to my cab driving days, when the dispatchers would holler "I'm not giving out any more work until whoever has his mic open SHUTS IT OFF!"
posted by Banky_Edwards at 5:22 PM on April 19, 2013 [1 favorite]


"watch your mike watch your mic"

These MCs all around me…
posted by klangklangston at 5:22 PM on April 19, 2013 [3 favorites]


tyllwin: "Let the motherfucker burn. Burn. Motherfucker, burn. (Someone had to say it)"

Not really.
posted by brundlefly at 5:22 PM on April 19, 2013 [15 favorites]


I've never listened to a scanner until about 5 minutes ago. I'm amazed at how calm everyone sounds.
Well, except for the guys with the open mics, these are professionals. :-P
posted by SpecialK at 5:22 PM on April 19, 2013


kinnakeet: "watch your mike watch your mic"

BPD open mic night and poetry slam
posted by subbes at 5:22 PM on April 19, 2013 [7 favorites]


He became a naturalized citizen... On Sept. 11th (NBC)

...2012.
posted by Sys Rq at 5:22 PM on April 19, 2013


There are jokes to help relieve tension, and there are jokes that just make people look a bit less human.
posted by The corpse in the library at 5:23 PM on April 19, 2013 [16 favorites]


Also I think we broke chat again
posted by subbes at 5:23 PM on April 19, 2013


52's the Mike!
posted by mitten of doom at 5:23 PM on April 19, 2013 [1 favorite]


Listen to the scanner, fire up some ambient tunes in Spotify, and you've got your Marathon Bombing version of You Are Listening To Boston (which is offline per police request).
posted by schoolgirl report at 5:23 PM on April 19, 2013 [3 favorites]


man we are just breaking the whole internet tonight
posted by inertia at 5:23 PM on April 19, 2013


tyllwin: "Let the motherfucker burn. Burn. Motherfucker, burn. (Someone had to say it)"

Not really.


Seriously. Weird people are being so gleeful.
posted by sweetkid at 5:24 PM on April 19, 2013 [1 favorite]


Where are the robots? It seems like we would have robots for this sort of situation?
posted by drezdn at 5:24 PM on April 19, 2013 [1 favorite]


Watch your Mike's! Watch your Mike's! [hiccup.]
posted by wensink at 5:24 PM on April 19, 2013


Saw this on Twitter: "He’s in a boat. The boat is on land. The land is in Watertown."
posted by GhostintheMachine at 5:24 PM on April 19, 2013 [56 favorites]


Zero jokes seems like the right number of jokes right now.
posted by diogenes at 5:24 PM on April 19, 2013 [15 favorites]


"BPD open mic night and poetry slam"

I already keep reading it as BDP and thinking "What's KRS-1 got to do with this?"
posted by klangklangston at 5:24 PM on April 19, 2013 [2 favorites]


Yeah, I like jokes but a bit less right now might be good.
posted by vrakatar at 5:24 PM on April 19, 2013 [1 favorite]


There are jokes to help relieve tension, and there are jokes that just make people look a bit less human.

I don't like Dane Cook either but isn't that excessive?
posted by Justinian at 5:24 PM on April 19, 2013 [3 favorites]


(for those that may not know, burn motherfucker burn is part of "the roof is on fire" song many of us grew up with and may be the joke to relieve tension, not the intent of the suspect burning)
posted by evening at 5:24 PM on April 19, 2013 [4 favorites]


I thought continuing the song lyrics was amusing. I do not in any way hope for his actual death.
posted by tyllwin at 5:25 PM on April 19, 2013 [1 favorite]


52's the Mike!

God, I hear that in Tom Brady's voice.
posted by schoolgirl report at 5:25 PM on April 19, 2013 [2 favorites]


nypost jokes broke the chat?
posted by Kinbote at 5:25 PM on April 19, 2013


Was he smart/stupid enough to light a fire knowing they were likely using infra-red cameras to monitor him? Would this work?
posted by batou_ at 5:25 PM on April 19, 2013


NBC Williams has too much Brian and not enough Pete tonight.
posted by maggieb at 5:25 PM on April 19, 2013


Someone is on CNN talking about historic figures who had the two bombers' first names and you actually see the boredom and distraction cross John King and Anderson Cooper's faces. They look like schoolkids.
posted by jamesonandwater at 5:25 PM on April 19, 2013 [2 favorites]


That would be a stunningly stupid plan, so maybe.
posted by klangklangston at 5:26 PM on April 19, 2013 [2 favorites]


"the roof is on fire" song many of us grew up with

And which was featured so prominently in Fahrenheit 9/11.
posted by localroger at 5:26 PM on April 19, 2013


I am by no means gleeful. Stir crazy, stressed, and punch drunk? YEP.

I so hope he's brought in alive.
posted by sonika at 5:26 PM on April 19, 2013


From a friend on Facebook:

Enjoy these moments because very soon Justin Bieber will be back to being the world's most wanted teen boy again.
posted by neroli at 5:26 PM on April 19, 2013 [9 favorites]


NBC's Pete Williams suggested the flash bang grenades might have started the fire.
posted by BobbyVan at 5:26 PM on April 19, 2013


I'm amazed at the level of calm on the scanner.

I've seen this a couple of times in this thread and it's reminding me of how, in Tom Wolf's "The Right Stuff," it was such a point of pride for the pilots to maintain that casual drawl on the radio.
posted by Trochanter at 5:26 PM on April 19, 2013 [6 favorites]


They're making too much of this "became a citizen on 9/11" thing. It's not like you choose the day you become a citizen. You attend an already-scheduled swearing-in. And usually you don't choose it. It's just a coincidence.
posted by Miko at 5:26 PM on April 19, 2013 [4 favorites]


I'm aware of the song. It just seems inappropriate given the context.
posted by brundlefly at 5:26 PM on April 19, 2013 [5 favorites]


yes yes, that's a song that was popular a long ass time ago and when repeated now seems really dark. having it repeated multiple times doesn't make it any funnier or less dark.
posted by nadawi at 5:27 PM on April 19, 2013 [6 favorites]


batou_ at: Was he smart enought ot light a fire knowing they were likely using infra-red cameras to monitor him? Would this work?

It might make it hard to see exactly what he's doing, but it won't cover his escape if he makes a run for it.

My guess is he's trying to kill himself, or the flashbangs accidentally set the boat on fire.
posted by Mitrovarr at 5:27 PM on April 19, 2013


NBC Williams has too much Brian and not enough Pete tonight.

Which station has Stewie?
posted by hal9k at 5:27 PM on April 19, 2013 [2 favorites]


Yeah, sorry, been stuck inside a mile away from all this bullshit, and am just a little relieved now. I actually hope he is captured alive. Didn't mean to offend.
posted by Elementary Penguin at 5:27 PM on April 19, 2013 [2 favorites]


Fuelers?
posted by mediated self at 5:27 PM on April 19, 2013


(for those that may not know, burn motherfucker burn is part of "the roof is on fire" song many of us grew up with)

I'm pretty sure that everyone knew that, it's just that neither the original post or the followups are particularly amusing.
posted by the.carol.baxter.experience at 5:27 PM on April 19, 2013 [4 favorites]


MSNBC just now announcing that a negotiator is on the scene. 25 minutes later....
posted by zerobyproxy at 5:27 PM on April 19, 2013


Actually, that makes the tweet he sent about how he was going to have a party on 9/11... a lot less sinister.
posted by RedEmma at 5:28 PM on April 19, 2013 [4 favorites]


maggieb: "NBC Williams has too much Brian and not enough Pete tonight."

At least it's not Allison.
posted by Dr. Zira at 5:28 PM on April 19, 2013 [3 favorites]


NBC: Negotiator on scene.
posted by CheeseDigestsAll at 5:28 PM on April 19, 2013


"Seeing an open flame or fire"

In a boat? Could really easily be a galley stove.
posted by jessamyn at 5:28 PM on April 19, 2013


How long can one boat stay on fire?
posted by not_on_display at 5:28 PM on April 19, 2013


Apologies if my starting the song lyric riffing was in poor taste. Stress has not turned me into my best self today.
posted by sonika at 5:28 PM on April 19, 2013 [4 favorites]


"They're making too much of this "became a citizen on 9/11" thing. It's not like you choose the day you become a citizen. You attend an already-scheduled swearing-in. And usually you don't choose it. It's just a coincidence."

…but really, Miko, could that coincidence help us create a narrative that plays into our prejudices? Could you speculate on that?
posted by klangklangston at 5:28 PM on April 19, 2013 [22 favorites]


Was he smart enought ot light a fire knowing they were likely using infra-red cameras to monitor him? Would this work?

If so, this would be the first XK-Red 17 double bluff reverse psychology-based escape plan to work, ever.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 5:29 PM on April 19, 2013


msnbc is horribly behind on this story
posted by quonsar II: smock fishpants and the temple of foon at 5:29 PM on April 19, 2013 [2 favorites]


Viking funeral.
posted by BobbyVan at 5:29 PM on April 19, 2013 [1 favorite]


Fuelers?

I believe 1 or more helicopters went off to refuel. He was saying that they called ahead and told the fuel guys to be ready, so that they can get back on scene as quickly as possible. A fueler is a guy who puts fuel into planes.
posted by zachlipton at 5:30 PM on April 19, 2013 [1 favorite]


Starting a fire to fool the infared seems like a great solution until you run out of boat.
posted by drezdn at 5:30 PM on April 19, 2013 [4 favorites]


If anyone else needs a deep cleansing breath, here are some kittehs.
posted by Space Kitty at 5:31 PM on April 19, 2013 [5 favorites]


I will! The reason for scheduling swearing-ins on 9/11 is to cheaply exploit the anniversary. Unexpected downstream events include shit like this.
posted by mwhybark at 5:31 PM on April 19, 2013 [4 favorites]


So if they don't know whether he's dead or alive doesn't that mean no visual? So how do they know it's him?
posted by seemoreglass at 5:31 PM on April 19, 2013


Webclient for chat is being pretty flaky- I got adium to connect with a jabber account to chat.metafilter.com... anyone know how I now get a chat window open? The "discovery browser" is open, but I'm not sure where I'm going in here.
posted by lyra4 at 5:31 PM on April 19, 2013




Mod note: Folks, please both a) be aware that some people use humor to blow off steam and b) some people do not respond positively to black humor. This is a big fast-moving thread and it's going to be imperfect.
posted by restless_nomad (staff) at 5:32 PM on April 19, 2013 [13 favorites]


He's a child... He's only eight years older than my daughter. Just barely a legal adult. I live 45 minutes away from Boston and of course I want him brought to justice, but... I'm just so sad right now. Just, for everything.
posted by Ruki at 5:32 PM on April 19, 2013 [47 favorites]


The thing about the open flame showing up to the helicopter makes me wonder if he isn't back there smoking a joint.
posted by SpecialK at 5:32 PM on April 19, 2013


I don't think this guy is going to be talked into surrendering. I think law enforcement should look into stunning or sedating him somehow. Evacuate the area, use something long range and if he's got a deadman switch, oh well.
posted by Mitrovarr at 5:33 PM on April 19, 2013


Those occasional ustream.tv commercials freak me out. I'm listening to them talking about a boat fire and then I suddenly get blasted with "I feel pretty, oh so pretty" in a Pampers spot.
posted by Slack-a-gogo at 5:33 PM on April 19, 2013 [2 favorites]


Dammit, Jamaro, that was MY suspicion!
posted by SpecialK at 5:33 PM on April 19, 2013


NBC: neighbor says they don't see or smell fire.
posted by CheeseDigestsAll at 5:33 PM on April 19, 2013


Adblock will take care of the ustream commercials nicely.
posted by SpecialK at 5:33 PM on April 19, 2013 [4 favorites]


I have never loved Adblock so much as I do now.
posted by kinnakeet at 5:34 PM on April 19, 2013 [5 favorites]




I agree with Ruki. I know he has allegedly done unspeakable things, but when I look in his face I see a misled boy.
posted by luminous phenomena at 5:34 PM on April 19, 2013 [11 favorites]


I don't mean to be pessimistic, but I believe there's a slim chance this guy is going to be alive before the night is over. If he's been bleeding out the entire day due to a gunshot wound, that's not good.
posted by docjohn at 5:35 PM on April 19, 2013


well guess thats why your not in charge then eh Mitro?
posted by edgeways at 5:35 PM on April 19, 2013


I want him caught alive and brought to justice. But yeah...I feel sad for him. His youth, his wasted life. I keep imagining what he must be feeling - the desperation, the loneliness. And then immediately feel weird and guilty I'm feeling sympathy for a killer. I don't get it either.
posted by Windigo at 5:35 PM on April 19, 2013 [24 favorites]


My son is a little younger than the suspect, and I was telling him that if he dyed his hair and eyebrows black, he would look a lot like the suspect.
posted by not_on_display at 5:35 PM on April 19, 2013


lyra4: "Webclient for chat is being pretty flaky- I got adium to connect with a jabber account to chat.metafilter.com... anyone know how I now get a chat window open? The "discovery browser" is open, but I'm not sure where I'm going in here."

Try the instructions here.
posted by Room 641-A at 5:35 PM on April 19, 2013


BREAKING NEWS: Three people taken into custody in New Bedford

FYI about that. New Bedford is next to Dartmouth (the town in MA, which is next to where I am in Westport) and that's where the kid went to college, UMass Dartmouth. Assume this has to do with the reports that he came down this way post-bombing, there's nothing else down here connected to these events that I know of.
posted by jessamyn at 5:35 PM on April 19, 2013 [1 favorite]


Reddit reader discovers he looks like second suspect. Poor Guy.
posted by benito.strauss at 5:36 PM on April 19, 2013 [4 favorites]


"I assumed that given the many reports of Suspect #2 enjoying his weed, that he was lighting a blunt."

God, if there's anyone who needs it…
posted by klangklangston at 5:37 PM on April 19, 2013


@Room 641-A -- thanks so much!
posted by lyra4 at 5:38 PM on April 19, 2013


Unidentified black back abandoned…
posted by klangklangston at 5:39 PM on April 19, 2013


Reddit reader discovers he looks like second suspect. Poor Guy.

Yeah, a guy I work with, who has similar big hair and a bit of a tan, walked down the hall this morning with a picture of the second suspect, looking bemused...
posted by limeonaire at 5:39 PM on April 19, 2013


I just keeping thinking about his family. Yes, he did something terrible, but what must it be like to watch your child or brother die on camera like this? All people are making jokes about his death on the internet and the media goulishly stand around waiting for the next thing they can report on. Whatever he's done someone loved this kid and this is how they get to see him end his life.
posted by lesbiassparrow at 5:39 PM on April 19, 2013 [10 favorites]


In other comic relief news, Fox apparently finds the suspect totes adorbs.
posted by headnsouth at 5:39 PM on April 19, 2013 [8 favorites]


Police are telling suspect in boat to come out on their own terms, according to reports.
posted by docjohn at 5:40 PM on April 19, 2013


Hey, Boston, here's your bag back...
posted by SpecialK at 5:40 PM on April 19, 2013


HRT only in the area on the boat. HRT to me means Hormone Replacement Therapy so i have visions of the boat having hot flashes.
posted by subbes at 5:40 PM on April 19, 2013 [4 favorites]


They are reporting on CNN that people are complaining that their house didn't get searched. They seem to be implying that the police were not being thorough. Really? Arm chair quarterbacking the SWAT team.
posted by double bubble at 5:40 PM on April 19, 2013


The HRT Hostage Rescue Team is going in???
posted by sammyo at 5:41 PM on April 19, 2013


There is absolutely no reason for them to assault the location at this stage. They have the suspect contained, and a negotiator on site, with a wounded suspect with limited options. It really should simply be a waiting game at this point. How this ends is pretty much up to him.
posted by PareidoliaticBoy at 5:41 PM on April 19, 2013 [2 favorites]


They're hearing applause right now... sounds like it's over.
posted by docjohn at 5:41 PM on April 19, 2013 [3 favorites]


Suspect in custody!
posted by The 10th Regiment of Foot at 5:41 PM on April 19, 2013 [9 favorites]


Suspect in custody
posted by PareidoliaticBoy at 5:41 PM on April 19, 2013


suspect in custody
posted by mediated self at 5:41 PM on April 19, 2013


I keep imagining what he must be feeling - the desperation, the loneliness. And then immediately feel weird and guilty I'm feeling sympathy for a killer. I don't get it either.

In ten years, the movie thriller version of today is going to be a)controversial b)amazing.

In the interim decade, expect to see thinly-veiled "man on the run" The Fugitive ripoffs.
posted by nicebookrack at 5:41 PM on April 19, 2013


suspect in cusody
posted by SNACKeR at 5:42 PM on April 19, 2013


suspect in custody
posted by quonsar II: smock fishpants and the temple of foon at 5:42 PM on April 19, 2013


suspect in custody!
posted by desjardins at 5:42 PM on April 19, 2013


Suspect in custody but still a hot scene.
posted by subbes at 5:42 PM on April 19, 2013


"I just keeping thinking about his family. Yes, he did something terrible, but what must it be like to watch your child or brother die on camera like this? All people are making jokes about his death on the internet and the media goulishly stand around waiting for the next thing they can report on. Whatever he's done someone loved this kid and this is how they get to see him end his life."

Counterpoint: If the first you hear of your relative in some time is that he's killed some folks, including a kid, at a marathon, and then traded shots with the cops, instead of thinking about how ghoulish the media is, maybe you shoulda fucking talked to him a little more.
posted by klangklangston at 5:42 PM on April 19, 2013 [3 favorites]


Suspect in custody.
posted by Malice at 5:42 PM on April 19, 2013


Suspect in custody!
posted by zombieflanders at 5:42 PM on April 19, 2013


Per the scanner, "Subject in custody."
posted by wensink at 5:42 PM on April 19, 2013


Suspect in custody.
posted by erpava at 5:42 PM on April 19, 2013


Suspect in custody?
posted by zerobyproxy at 5:42 PM on April 19, 2013 [6 favorites]


In custody on scanner, but no idea if hes alive...
posted by batou_ at 5:42 PM on April 19, 2013


Suspect in custody. Medic called for.
posted by RedEmma at 5:42 PM on April 19, 2013


"suspect in custody but nobody outside the perimeter"
posted by whyareyouatriangle at 5:42 PM on April 19, 2013


suspect in custody?
posted by marimeko at 5:42 PM on April 19, 2013


"suspect in custody"??
posted by scody at 5:42 PM on April 19, 2013


Medic, medic.
posted by ageispolis at 5:42 PM on April 19, 2013


And a call for a medic.
posted by subbes at 5:42 PM on April 19, 2013


calling for a medic
posted by celare at 5:42 PM on April 19, 2013


Suspect in custody!
posted by The Great Big Mulp at 5:42 PM on April 19, 2013 [1 favorite]


"Suspect in custody...still a hot scene."
posted by Lexicographer at 5:42 PM on April 19, 2013


suspect in custody, i think
posted by inertia at 5:42 PM on April 19, 2013


Calling for a medic
posted by zombieflanders at 5:42 PM on April 19, 2013


"Suspect in custody"
posted by Secret Life of Gravy at 5:42 PM on April 19, 2013


Sounds like they've recovered the suspect alive.
posted by docjohn at 5:42 PM on April 19, 2013


calls for medic, medic
posted by SpecialK at 5:42 PM on April 19, 2013


In other comic relief news, Fox apparently finds the suspect totes adorbs.

You know, that's actually what I said when my coworker walked up with the printout of his photo this morning—it's so unfortunate that two brothers who were so good-looking, so smart, resorted to doing this with their lives.
posted by limeonaire at 5:42 PM on April 19, 2013 [1 favorite]


I heard "Suspect in custody" and also "Medic! Medic!".
posted by shiny blue object at 5:42 PM on April 19, 2013


"Medic! Medic!"
posted by Feisty at 5:42 PM on April 19, 2013


I can breathe... almost
posted by kinnakeet at 5:42 PM on April 19, 2013


Now we have to hope hes not fatally injured
posted by zombieflanders at 5:43 PM on April 19, 2013 [8 favorites]


"Landmark is Watertown High"
posted by mediated self at 5:43 PM on April 19, 2013


Arm chair quarterbacking the SWAT team.

It's the Boston way.

ALIVE. IN CUSTODY. IT'S OVER.
posted by sonika at 5:43 PM on April 19, 2013 [2 favorites]


Was following this thread while out at dinner, then switched to NPR while in the car. It was astonishing to hear how behind NPR was. Listening ABC news now and the amount of talking head air filler is amazingly depressing.

I don't think this guy is going to be talked into surrendering.

He's had all day to kill himself. He's had time to kill himself once the police found him. He wants to live. He may not, but he does want to live, for some reason

ON preview: yep, he's in custody? TV still has talking heads and vague reports from neighbors.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 5:43 PM on April 19, 2013 [1 favorite]


Hey, I've heard that they may have a suspect in custody. Have any of you guys heard that?
posted by klangklangston at 5:43 PM on April 19, 2013 [27 favorites]


Suspected custardy
posted by The 10th Regiment of Foot at 5:43 PM on April 19, 2013 [22 favorites]


Hope the first thing they ask him is "why the hell did you do this"
posted by subbes at 5:43 PM on April 19, 2013


Hearing a lot of cheers from all around in the north end of Boston. Seems I'm not the only one following this story.
posted by clockbound at 5:44 PM on April 19, 2013 [2 favorites]


What? I leave the house for dinner and I miss it?
posted by computech_apolloniajames at 5:44 PM on April 19, 2013


> Now we have to hope hes not fatally injured

I doubt any human in North America is going to get more intensive medical care than he is tonight. There are a lot of people who want him alive and cogent and able to talk.
posted by ardgedee at 5:44 PM on April 19, 2013 [6 favorites]


I just counted 25 comments made at 8:42. Is that some kind of record?
posted by Secret Life of Gravy at 5:44 PM on April 19, 2013 [4 favorites]


NPR was busy interviewing someone who went to 4th grade with one of them.
posted by theredpen at 5:44 PM on April 19, 2013


They had his brother in custody too.
posted by ChurchHatesTucker at 5:44 PM on April 19, 2013


It is absolutely remarkable that they have taken him alive and no bystanders have been injured in the last 24 hours. Congrats, BPD and Feds.
posted by Dr. Zira at 5:44 PM on April 19, 2013 [15 favorites]


There's a quarter of a million people listening to the ustream with the scanner.
posted by SpecialK at 5:44 PM on April 19, 2013


+
posted by vrakatar at 5:44 PM on April 19, 2013


In ten years, the movie thriller version of today is going to be a)controversial b)amazing.

Wonder if Ben Affleck will get another Academy Award?
posted by fuse theorem at 5:44 PM on April 19, 2013 [5 favorites]


What a relief.
posted by MissySedai at 5:44 PM on April 19, 2013


Charlie Abrahams, tie on boat was cut, bloody handprint. I think that's the name if the guy who called it in.
posted by dhacker at 5:45 PM on April 19, 2013


They had his brother in custody too.

No, they didn't.
posted by chimaera at 5:45 PM on April 19, 2013


Goddamn Police/FBI/etc. Fucking well done.
posted by benito.strauss at 5:45 PM on April 19, 2013 [5 favorites]


Boston PD, FBI, etc. drink for free tonight all weekend.
posted by drezdn at 5:45 PM on April 19, 2013 [3 favorites]


"Hope the first thing they ask him is "why the hell did you do this""

"Do you maybe wish you'd gone to trade school instead?"
posted by klangklangston at 5:45 PM on April 19, 2013 [3 favorites]


GOT HEEM!
posted by vrakatar at 5:45 PM on April 19, 2013 [1 favorite]


ABC News is talking the older brother's wife.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 5:45 PM on April 19, 2013


Whoop. Make that 31 comments at 8:42
posted by Secret Life of Gravy at 5:46 PM on April 19, 2013 [2 favorites]


Phew.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 5:46 PM on April 19, 2013 [1 favorite]


No, they didn't.

Yes they did. He died at the hospital. There's a NYT article about the doctor.
posted by ageispolis at 5:46 PM on April 19, 2013 [2 favorites]


Ooh, he's got a canine dog!
posted by klangklangston at 5:46 PM on April 19, 2013 [1 favorite]



It is absolutely remarkable that they have taken him alive and no bystanders have been injured in the last 24 hours. Congrats, BPD and Feds.

They should send a training video to the LAPD.
posted by Pogo_Fuzzybutt at 5:46 PM on April 19, 2013 [20 favorites]


Metafilter, thanks for being here!
posted by newdaddy at 5:46 PM on April 19, 2013 [11 favorites]


Incredible
posted by faineant at 5:46 PM on April 19, 2013


"Do you maybe wish you'd gone to trade school instead?"

"Why didn't you join the Coast Guard last year?"
posted by inigo2 at 5:46 PM on April 19, 2013 [12 favorites]


Bomb dog on site.
posted by zerobyproxy at 5:46 PM on April 19, 2013


Good work. and here's hoping we can find out something from him.
posted by jonmc at 5:46 PM on April 19, 2013 [1 favorite]


They had his brother in custody too.

Nonsense. He was firing at the police and throwing bombs at them.
posted by PareidoliaticBoy at 5:46 PM on April 19, 2013


Y'all been listening to wrong NPR. WBUR has been right on this.
posted by seemoreglass at 5:46 PM on April 19, 2013 [1 favorite]


‏@BostonGlobe - Dzhokhar Tsarnaev IN CUSTODY!
posted by feloniousmonk at 5:46 PM on April 19, 2013


Hearing calls for EOD dogs.
posted by shiny blue object at 5:46 PM on April 19, 2013


Thank you to all for the blow by blow. I hate myself for being unable to tear away from it all but there was nothing better than seeing "suspect in custody" over and over. Such a relief.
posted by double bubble at 5:47 PM on April 19, 2013 [8 favorites]


'in custody'
posted by dragonsi55 at 5:47 PM on April 19, 2013


Yes they did. He died at the hospital. There's a NYT article about the doctor.

I stand corrected. I understood that he had died at the scene.
posted by chimaera at 5:47 PM on April 19, 2013


Might not be that long. We don't know his injuries.
posted by humanfont at 5:47 PM on April 19, 2013


ABC news still talking to to an eyewitness in the neighborhood, talking about all the cops on the street. No indication that a suspect has been captured.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 5:47 PM on April 19, 2013


"Sect pus in coy stud"
posted by Alvy Ampersand at 5:47 PM on April 19, 2013


"They should send a training video to the LAPD."

What makes you think that the LAPD wants to take people alive?
posted by klangklangston at 5:47 PM on April 19, 2013 [3 favorites]


Metafilter and the rest of the media seemed to have intersected... albeit for a brief moment.
posted by JoeXIII007 at 5:48 PM on April 19, 2013


The EOD dog is not likely to be useful in a boat with fuel or with anything smoked in it.

"K-9 dog" is opposed to "K-9 Unit", which is a handler, flanker, and dog.
posted by SpecialK at 5:48 PM on April 19, 2013 [3 favorites]


I have family in the area, and the relief right now is about the best feeling in the world.
posted by Sequence at 5:48 PM on April 19, 2013 [3 favorites]


Thank goodness it's over! No more death or danger for anyone.

"They should send a training video to the LAPD."

The LAPD would have gone around the neighborhood shooting up every boat of a similar make and model they could find.
posted by Kevin Street at 5:48 PM on April 19, 2013 [9 favorites]


I coulda sworn I heard some guy on the scanner say 'it's too late' all sorrowful like? did I imagine that?
posted by notesondismantling at 5:48 PM on April 19, 2013


Ok, now ABC news reporting that the guy is in custody, no idea of suspect's condition.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 5:48 PM on April 19, 2013


Cheers in Boston. Everybody knows his name. Suspect would have liked to get away.
posted by hal9k at 5:48 PM on April 19, 2013 [14 favorites]


Підозрюваний під вартою!
posted by mazola at 5:48 PM on April 19, 2013


Okay everyone stop drinking in panic and start drinking in celebration.
posted by The Whelk at 5:48 PM on April 19, 2013 [45 favorites]


If true...one hell of an accomplishment. BPD, the city of Boston, FBI, USA, you exceeded my expectations. Glad this didn't end like Dorner. Well done. I'm proud. It really sets a good example internationally.
posted by karst at 5:49 PM on April 19, 2013 [4 favorites]


The impression I get after hearing friends' accounts, social media stuff, etc., is that the younger brother was not only pretty normal, but likely wasn't even aware he was partly responsible for the attack until well afterward. The post-attack tweets just did not strike me as something a knowingly responsible suspect would put out there.

I could easily see the older brother, a highly devout radical Muslim convert, roping his brother into this scheme unawares, with the younger just being taken along for the ride and then finally driven by desperation and fear as all hell broke loose.

Of course I've only been able to keep up with this periodically on my phone, so I may have missed some more incriminating info. But I wouldn't be surprised if this is how it went down.

Ninja edit: SUSPECT IN POLICE CUSTODY
posted by Rhaomi at 5:49 PM on April 19, 2013 [5 favorites]


PareidoliaticBoy: "They had his brother in custody too.

Nonsense. He was firing at the police and throwing bombs at them.
"

What does that mean? That's like saying "They have suspect #2 in custody" "Nonsense. He was hiding in a boat."
posted by Bugbread at 5:49 PM on April 19, 2013 [3 favorites]


"The LAPD would have gone around the neighborhood shooting up every boat of a similar make and model they could find."

"Hey, what, it looked like a boat, bra."
posted by klangklangston at 5:49 PM on April 19, 2013 [3 favorites]


Thank you Metafilter, for keeping me informed on the other side of the world (with a slow internet connection). Now I can relax!
posted by orrnyereg at 5:49 PM on April 19, 2013


Keep him alive, please keep him alive.
posted by vrakatar at 5:50 PM on April 19, 2013 [5 favorites]



If true...one hell of an accomplishment. BPD, the city of Boston, FBI, USA, you exceeded my expectations. Glad this didn't end like Dorner. Well done. I'm proud. It really sets a good example internationally.

very happy about this, hope "alive" status continues.
posted by sweetkid at 5:50 PM on April 19, 2013


"They should send a training video to the LAPD."

The LAPD would have gone around the neighborhood shooting up every boat of a similar make and model they could find.


Really, after all this, after all these officers have done, this guy is in custody for all of 6 minutes and we're hating on cops already....

Please, let's not do this.
posted by HuronBob at 5:50 PM on April 19, 2013 [2 favorites]


"Okay everyone stop drinking in panic and start drinking in celebration."

ON IT
posted by klangklangston at 5:50 PM on April 19, 2013 [20 favorites]


The impression I get after hearing friends' accounts, social media stuff, etc., is that the younger brother was not only pretty normal, but likely wasn't even aware he was partly responsible for the attack until well afterward. The post-attack tweets just did not strike me as something a knowingly responsible suspect would put out there.

I could easily see the older brother, a highly devout radical Muslim convert, roping his brother into this scheme unawares, with the younger just being taken along for the ride and then finally driven by desperation and fear as all hell broke loose.


I'm so worried this is true.
posted by showbiz_liz at 5:50 PM on April 19, 2013 [4 favorites]


Ambulance should just be escorted by the bearcat. The bearcat can just be driven through everything else.
posted by SpecialK at 5:50 PM on April 19, 2013


I feel bad for the kid. Relieved he's alive. Do I have some sort of Stockholm syndrome?
posted by steef at 5:50 PM on April 19, 2013 [14 favorites]


Boston PD tweeted suspect in custody.
posted by Skygazer at 5:50 PM on April 19, 2013 [1 favorite]


so what's on next
posted by whyareyouatriangle at 5:51 PM on April 19, 2013 [6 favorites]


Good job. Outright killing him would have been far easier, and I'm very happy that wasn't done.
posted by tyllwin at 5:51 PM on April 19, 2013


Will continue drinking in sheer emotional exhaustion.
posted by rtha at 5:51 PM on April 19, 2013 [4 favorites]


Підозрюваний під вартою!

Навіщо українською?
posted by Nomyte at 5:51 PM on April 19, 2013 [1 favorite]


Dispatch: "Good jawb, gentlemen. Good jawb! Nevah bettah."
posted by wensink at 5:51 PM on April 19, 2013 [30 favorites]


"Really, after all this, after all these officers have done, this guy is in custody for all of 6 minutes and we're hating on cops already...."

Bob, God love ya, but I'm in LA, where a manhunt for a six-foot black dude means shooting up a pickup full of Asian ladies. I'm not hating on cops, I'm making fun of the LAPD.
posted by klangklangston at 5:51 PM on April 19, 2013 [37 favorites]


Yes they did. He died at the hospital. There's a NYT article about the doctor.

I stand corrected. I understood that he had died at the scene.


Maybe they officially called it at the hospital. But I saw the photo. He died at the scene.
posted by murfed13 at 5:51 PM on April 19, 2013


I feel bad for the kid. Relieved he's alive. Do I have some sort of Stockholm syndrome?

No, you're just a human being.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 5:51 PM on April 19, 2013 [58 favorites]


I'm still worried that he is not going to make it. I like many others here want to understand WHY?!?!?!?
posted by batou_ at 5:52 PM on April 19, 2013 [2 favorites]


I could easily see the older brother, a highly devout radical Muslim convert, roping his brother into this scheme unawares, with the younger just being taken along for the ride and then finally driven by desperation and fear as all hell broke loose.


I would have thought so too earlier but that doesn't gibe with him going back to school and then going to a party. If he really had just been a dupe, not realizing how bad the bombing was going to be, how could he be so cool and calm afterwards?
posted by Secret Life of Gravy at 5:52 PM on April 19, 2013


The impression I get after hearing friends' accounts, social media stuff, etc., is that the younger brother was not only pretty normal, but likely wasn't even aware he was partly responsible for the attack until well afterward.

"So you see, little bro, two friends of mine are buying these old pressure cookers from me. The thing is they are too busy running in the marathon to pick them up, so I suggested we could just deliver them. They said they will pick them up at the finish line."
posted by Drinky Die at 5:52 PM on April 19, 2013 [7 favorites]


I feel bad for the kid. Relieved he's alive. Do I have some sort of Stockholm syndrome?

I can't explain why, but I feel the same way. I think what's getting to me is the relief that so many people (here) are expressing -- being so glad that he's alive. It's not what you expect to hear after something like this.
posted by mudpuppie at 5:52 PM on April 19, 2013 [8 favorites]


Watching this unfold on Metafilter and Twitter has really highlighted the total redundancy and obsolescence of the news networks.

Case in point, the CBC is currently reporting that the "Suspect may be on a boat".
posted by sarastro at 5:52 PM on April 19, 2013 [15 favorites]


so what's on next

Here's hoping just weeks and weeks of kitten videos.
posted by drezdn at 5:52 PM on April 19, 2013 [25 favorites]


I could easily see the older brother, a highly devout radical Muslim convert, roping his brother into this scheme unawares, with the younger just being taken along for the ride and then finally driven by desperation and fear as all hell broke loose.

Absolutely heartbreaking if true.
posted by empath at 5:52 PM on April 19, 2013 [4 favorites]


"Hey, what, it looked like a boat, bra.".

They tased it first.
posted by Mr. Yuck at 5:52 PM on April 19, 2013 [1 favorite]


"All SWAT teams have been relieved"
posted by The 10th Regiment of Foot at 5:53 PM on April 19, 2013


"wanna get some beer right now?" - police scanner rocks
posted by Pogo_Fuzzybutt at 5:53 PM on April 19, 2013 [16 favorites]


Навіщо українською?

Чому ні?
posted by mazola at 5:53 PM on April 19, 2013


Wcbv reports he is alive, on way to hospital.
posted by vrakatar at 5:53 PM on April 19, 2013


sarastro: "Watching this unfold on Metafilter and Twitter has really highlighted the total redundancy and obsolescence of the news networks. "

Many of them, not all of them. WHDH coverage has been excellent.
posted by Bugbread at 5:53 PM on April 19, 2013 [2 favorites]


"Okay everyone stop drinking in panic and start drinking in celebration."

ON IT


Yep, fishbowls very soon.
posted by limeonaire at 5:53 PM on April 19, 2013


Klang...I'm not saying they are all good, I just get weary of the generalizations...
posted by HuronBob at 5:53 PM on April 19, 2013


YAAAAAAAAY
posted by not_on_display at 5:53 PM on April 19, 2013 [2 favorites]


I know us Bostonians are super relieved and just wanna get a damn drink
posted by The Biggest Dreamer at 5:54 PM on April 19, 2013 [2 favorites]


You know, when shit like this happens alot of people get angry and abandon (at least in terms of talk) principles of law and rights and get all lynchmobby (and there's a part of me that understands that rage), but now is actually the time we should be observing every formality and dotting every i and crossing every t. Firstly , because I want this asshole convicted dead to rights, and two, if there's more people behind this, I wanna know.
posted by jonmc at 5:54 PM on April 19, 2013 [20 favorites]


I hope what follows is a legal process that we in the U.S. can be proud of.
posted by angrycat at 5:54 PM on April 19, 2013 [51 favorites]


I don't know if Massachusetts has the death penalty, but if they do, I hope this guy doesn't get it. Even without death penalty ethical concerns—ending with an execution makes all the effort put in today to find him alive and bring him to justice alive feel wasted.
posted by nicebookrack at 5:54 PM on April 19, 2013 [4 favorites]


Чому ні?

Авжеш.
posted by Nomyte at 5:54 PM on April 19, 2013


Yeah, total respect for WHDH -- only live coverage that didn't make me hate the world.
posted by neroli at 5:55 PM on April 19, 2013 [3 favorites]


I feel bad for the kid. Relieved he's alive. Do I have some sort of Stockholm syndrome?

Nah, just a reasonable hope for answers and some kind of justice.
posted by Space Kitty at 5:55 PM on April 19, 2013 [6 favorites]


First of all, Metafilter is awesome.

Secondly, an interesting component to me is that the 2 brothers are 7 years apart. Me and my bro are 5 years apart, and that felt like an eternity when I was growing up. Even at 19, it felt like we were at radically different parts of our lives. So the notion of the elder influencing (brainwashing? etc) the younger makes a certain amount of sense to me.
posted by fingers_of_fire at 5:55 PM on April 19, 2013 [2 favorites]


"Watching this unfold on Metafilter and Twitter has really highlighted the total redundancy and obsolescence of the news networks. "

Really? Because I remember Reddit rumors running rampant, and really good reporting from the local CBS and WGBH outlets, along with good reporting from the NY Times.

So, no, there were good pros and bad pros out there, and it showed the difference between people who legitimately care about the news and people who spew bullshit and accidentally wreck lives.
posted by klangklangston at 5:55 PM on April 19, 2013 [10 favorites]


Ha, the CBC was reporting he was on "a boat"!!

... oh. Wait. I guess that is how you pronounce it.
posted by klarck at 5:55 PM on April 19, 2013 [2 favorites]


"Attention all Boston PD, we have our second suspect in custody."
posted by The 10th Regiment of Foot at 5:55 PM on April 19, 2013


Dispatch: "Officer Hawkins, are you all set?" Officer Hawkins: "I am wonderful"
posted by schoolgirl report at 5:55 PM on April 19, 2013 [10 favorites]


No death penalty in Ma.
posted by batou_ at 5:55 PM on April 19, 2013


Well. Jesus.
posted by shakespeherian at 5:55 PM on April 19, 2013


Авжеш.

Gesundheit!
posted by mazola at 5:56 PM on April 19, 2013 [8 favorites]


PD thanking dispatchers
posted by schoolgirl report at 5:56 PM on April 19, 2013 [1 favorite]


nicebookrack, we don't have the death penalty, something that I am very very happy about.
posted by lydhre at 5:56 PM on April 19, 2013


MA doesn't matter, it's Federal jurisdiction.
posted by CheeseDigestsAll at 5:56 PM on April 19, 2013 [5 favorites]


I don't know if Massachusetts has the death penalty, but if they do, I hope this guy doesn't get it.

They don't, but if he is tried as a terrorist in a federal court, he could face that penalty there, possibly.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 5:56 PM on April 19, 2013 [1 favorite]


I am very impressed at the performance from the police and other agencies here.
posted by thelonius at 5:56 PM on April 19, 2013


Will the neighbour who spotted the hole in the boat cover get the $50k reward? Hope so.
posted by jamesonandwater at 5:56 PM on April 19, 2013 [7 favorites]


From the feed (excited voice): "You guys are awesome."
posted by ersatz at 5:56 PM on April 19, 2013 [4 favorites]


But the feds do.
posted by Dr. Zira at 5:56 PM on April 19, 2013


Massachusetts does not have the death penalty, but if they charge him with a federal crime I think he can still be sentenced to death.
posted by Kosh at 5:56 PM on April 19, 2013


"Dispatchers were awesome!" - official police broadcast
posted by zombieflanders at 5:56 PM on April 19, 2013 [9 favorites]


No death penalty in Ma.

He could be charged with a Federal crime?
posted by 1970s Antihero at 5:56 PM on April 19, 2013


There's a federal death penalty for terrorism.
posted by empath at 5:57 PM on April 19, 2013 [1 favorite]


All the interagency congratulations on the scanner are making me tear up.

I lived in Boston for just under a year and never got to like it. Now, I only feel love towards the place. Might be time to go back for a visit with clear eyes.
posted by mudpuppie at 5:57 PM on April 19, 2013 [2 favorites]


Came out after listening to Hostage Negotiator. Handcuffed.
posted by Feisty at 5:57 PM on April 19, 2013 [2 favorites]


What does that mean?

It's a response to the idiotic suggestion that the death of the suspect last night was willful on the part of LEOs. He sustained injuries in a violent battle that was initiated by the suspects, and he died under medical care, at the scene. His injuries did not occur while in custody. The peaceful resolution of this incident is testimony to the professionalism of the authorities here, and that smirking suggestion otherwise was completely unwarranted.
posted by PareidoliaticBoy at 5:57 PM on April 19, 2013 [3 favorites]


I hope what follows is a legal process that we in the U.S. can be proud of.

So he didn't cross any state lines but it was a bombing. Will this be a State trial or a Federal trial?
posted by Secret Life of Gravy at 5:57 PM on April 19, 2013


"Klang...I'm not saying they are all good, I just get weary of the generalizations..."

In LA, there is very much the perception that the LAPD are trigger-happy cowboys, and have been such for over 30 years. (In part, it comes from having fewer officers per capita and per mile than pretty much any other major city, so they tend to over-react). So while you may get tired of generalizations, I live her, and when I see a cop, I think of someone who I have to make sure won't kill me.

And I'm not even a minority.
posted by klangklangston at 5:57 PM on April 19, 2013 [13 favorites]


Maybe they officially called it at the hospital. But I saw the photo. He died at the scene.


Yeah, he wasn't breathing in that photo at all...
posted by ChurchHatesTucker at 5:57 PM on April 19, 2013 [6 favorites]


Police scanner now featuring a polite request that officers who borrowed shotguns return them.
posted by subbes at 5:57 PM on April 19, 2013 [5 favorites]


I'm not sure a guy who is a total dupe runs over his brother, post police shoot out, to get away. I might be wrong, I've never been in that kind of situation, but I wonder a bit at the effort to make this guy into another variety of victim.
posted by OmieWise at 5:57 PM on April 19, 2013 [2 favorites]


I have a career and a mindset that often sets me in a critical position to the actions of law enforcement, and I just wanted to say here and now that how this was handled, particularly in contrast to Dorner, was absolutely amazing and makes me very, very proud of our law enforcement.
posted by rollbiz at 5:58 PM on April 19, 2013 [16 favorites]


NBC: Obama will treat terrorist as "criminal" not enemy combatant.
posted by zombieflanders at 5:58 PM on April 19, 2013 [21 favorites]


ABC is now broadcasting the snippet of the scanner we were listening to. Just a touch later.
posted by tyllwin at 5:58 PM on April 19, 2013


Time to celebrate the "suspect in custad-y" with frozen custard!
posted by terrierhead at 5:58 PM on April 19, 2013 [3 favorites]


I just want to say, thanks to MetaFilter for the collective coverage of this. I work in the news (technically—at a magazine), but you've all kept me the most informed of my colleagues or maybe anyone else I know throughout all of this.
posted by limeonaire at 5:58 PM on April 19, 2013 [18 favorites]


I hope there are some good bars in Boston

Where everybody knows your name.
posted by shakespeherian at 5:58 PM on April 19, 2013 [10 favorites]


Bringing him to Mount Auburn hospital. No word on condition, that I've heard.
posted by inigo2 at 5:59 PM on April 19, 2013


Will this be a State trial or a Federal trial?

According to ABC News, it's going to be Federal terrorism charges, along with multiple murder.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 5:59 PM on April 19, 2013


LOVE.
posted by vrakatar at 5:59 PM on April 19, 2013


Timothy McVeigh was sentenced to death on the Federal terrorism charge.
posted by localroger at 5:59 PM on April 19, 2013


MSNBC reporting that he will be tried under federal jurisdiction.
posted by sonika at 5:59 PM on April 19, 2013


Dispatchers have one of the most difficult jobs in emergency services.

There were a lot of us listening to the scanner tonight, and a lot of people on chat were commenting about how their heads were ready to explode and they couldn't focus on anything. They were also nervous for the officers and for the kid.

Imagine feeling that and doing that ... every single day ... for 12 hours a day ... as your job. And not only that, you're the one responsible for taking the panicked initial call, then ordering firefighters, medics, and police into danger, and then unable to find out anything about what's going on unless someone tells you specifically.

So yes, that was dispatch's pat on the back. They won't get another one. You heard it.
posted by SpecialK at 5:59 PM on April 19, 2013 [35 favorites]


Apparently it took 27.5 hours to nab the bombers once the FBI went public with the evidence.
posted by lullaby at 5:59 PM on April 19, 2013 [7 favorites]


Been stuck at work with no radio or TV and most media websites blocked by firewall. I need to tell you people, this has been the single best Metafilter thread ever. Absolutely riveting.
posted by Slarty Bartfast at 6:00 PM on April 19, 2013 [4 favorites]


From Commissioner on scanner: "It's a proud day to be a Boston police officer. Thank you all."
posted by subbes at 6:00 PM on April 19, 2013 [4 favorites]


Imagine feeling that and doing that ... every single day ... for 12 hours a day ... as your job.

I have immense sympathy.
posted by restless_nomad at 6:00 PM on April 19, 2013 [9 favorites]


They're all thanking Commissioner GordonBob
posted by zombieflanders at 6:00 PM on April 19, 2013 [2 favorites]


I'm not sure a guy who is a total dupe runs over his brother, post police shoot out, to get away.

There's a chance he may not have actually done that.
posted by drezdn at 6:00 PM on April 19, 2013


Yeah, he wasn't breathing in that photo at all...

I was talking about all the bullet holes and the piece of his chest that was missing.
posted by murfed13 at 6:00 PM on April 19, 2013


So he doesn't get sent straight to Gitmo? Seems a bit unfair to the innocent housed in Gitmo. Imagine how pissed you'd be. HE GETS A TRIAL!?! THAT GUY!? DID YOU SEE WHAT HE... WTF.....
posted by banished at 6:00 PM on April 19, 2013 [10 favorites]


I'm not sure a guy who is a total dupe runs over his brother, post police shoot out, to get away

Well, he did run over his brother, not the cops.
posted by empath at 6:01 PM on April 19, 2013 [1 favorite]


Thanks everybody.
posted by rustcellar at 6:02 PM on April 19, 2013 [1 favorite]


Urgent from Barack to Lindsay: Shuck it Graham. Shuck it long and shuck it hard.
posted by zombieflanders at 6:02 PM on April 19, 2013 [5 favorites]


It's gonna be like the Red Sox won the pennant here tonight.
posted by not_on_display at 6:02 PM on April 19, 2013 [3 favorites]


So he doesn't get sent straight to Gitmo? Seems a bit unfair to the innocent housed in Gitmo. Imagine how pissed you'd be. HE GETS A TRIAL!?! THAT GUY!? DID YOU SEE WHAT HE... WTF.....

Don't be so sure.
posted by 922257033c4a0f3cecdbd819a46d626999d1af4a at 6:02 PM on April 19, 2013 [1 favorite]


Okay, so --

How do we thank the cops in Boston? I was thinking of placing phone orders to local Boston businesses (that had to stay closed today and so lost cash business), and buying stuff for the cops (flowers, beer, whatever), and sending it to various precincts, but my concern is that the cops would likely treat any deliveries to precincts in the near future as suspect....

Any ideas?
posted by tzikeh at 6:02 PM on April 19, 2013 [4 favorites]


I just hope he didn't leave anything behind. (The cops just scoured the neighborhood for hours, right? So it should be fine, right?)
posted by evidenceofabsence at 6:02 PM on April 19, 2013


And yeah, thanks everyone. This thread was much more informative than any news outlet I could tune into.
posted by not_on_display at 6:02 PM on April 19, 2013 [3 favorites]


Okay, let's play some frickin' hockey, pal!
posted by schoolgirl report at 6:03 PM on April 19, 2013


ABC news also reporting that police did not fire at the suspect when he fired on them from the boat. They waited, cleared the area and evidently sent in to bomb disposal robot. Lots of cheering on the street where the house was located. Plenty hugging also.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 6:03 PM on April 19, 2013 [5 favorites]


He didn't run over his broteher - he escaped on foot - police chief at press conference earlier
posted by marienbad at 6:03 PM on April 19, 2013 [3 favorites]


Wife still has the news feed on. My hyperbole meter just blew up.
posted by localroger at 6:03 PM on April 19, 2013 [2 favorites]


There's a chance he may not have actually done that.

Yup. There's a chance he didn't try to kill a bunch of people too. I repeat: I wonder a bit about the urge to turn this guy into another variety of victim.
posted by OmieWise at 6:03 PM on April 19, 2013


Gesundheit!

And now all of Metafilter will laugh at my inability to spell correctly in Ukrainian.
posted by Nomyte at 6:03 PM on April 19, 2013


"particularly in contrast to Dorner"

This. A thousand times this. I thought the same thing about a dozen times today. My mother was in LA when the PD shot up two unarmed women in a pickup truck and was praying that BPD would distinguish themselves as a cut above that unfortunate and chilling mess. Cheer's to all of New England's finest.
posted by midmarch snowman at 6:04 PM on April 19, 2013 [5 favorites]


I'm not sure a guy who is a total dupe runs over his brother...

Was that ever sourced?
posted by ChurchHatesTucker at 6:04 PM on April 19, 2013


I'm not sure a guy who is a total dupe runs over his brother, post police shoot out, to get away. I might be wrong, I've never been in that kind of situation, but I wonder a bit at the effort to make this guy into another variety of victim.

That point has been disputed. He ran away on foot according to some reports, not car. I'm waiting to see some official version not the CNN version before I judge him on that.
posted by Secret Life of Gravy at 6:04 PM on April 19, 2013 [1 favorite]


Thanks mods. I know this has been a rough week, and thanks doesn't even begin to cover the gratitude I feel for Metafilter when things like this happen in the world.
posted by gofargogo at 6:04 PM on April 19, 2013 [32 favorites]


Yeah, he wasn't breathing in that photo at all...

In the photo he has fist-sized holes through his rib-cage. There was no breathing to be done.
posted by The 10th Regiment of Foot at 6:04 PM on April 19, 2013 [1 favorite]


It's going to be so good to stop saying to people "Hope you're doing okay" and "Stay safe."
posted by Countess Elena at 6:05 PM on April 19, 2013 [3 favorites]


localroger: My hyperbole meter just blew up.

You're exaggerating, right?
posted by syzygy at 6:05 PM on April 19, 2013 [10 favorites]


On NPR, CNN and ABC news lots of repeated explanations of what flash grenade is and does. Weird. The common thread on the tv media seems to be spoon feeding information to viewers.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 6:05 PM on April 19, 2013


Secret Life of Gravy: " Will this be a State trial or a Federal trial?"

They can do both. McVeigh was tried in state court as well.
posted by Dr. Zira at 6:05 PM on April 19, 2013 [1 favorite]


party pooper on the radio: try to keep it relatively professional
posted by whyareyouatriangle at 6:05 PM on April 19, 2013 [4 favorites]


I am so, so glad the police et al handled this in such a professional way, and that nobody else got hurt. That is amazing and finally some good news this week.
posted by LobsterMitten at 6:05 PM on April 19, 2013 [7 favorites]


Very moved by people yelling "thank you" to the cops. Besides the fact that they did a great job, I always love when people appreciate the public services their taxes pay for.
posted by neroli at 6:06 PM on April 19, 2013 [10 favorites]


Lawrence cops are going home, just asked what the weather was like.
posted by not_on_display at 6:06 PM on April 19, 2013


MA doesn't matter, it's Federal jurisdiction.

Do we know that for certain yet? I would expect it to take a little bit of time to sort out jurisdiction?
posted by MissySedai at 6:06 PM on April 19, 2013


Man. We should have a duck boat parade.

I've been refreshing this thread all day. Thank you, everyone, for sharing information, and thanks to the mods for keeping us on track.
posted by dywypi at 6:06 PM on April 19, 2013 [2 favorites]


This may be late but ProPublica does a really good job of humanizing Dzokhar:

Dzhokhar had long hair and was short, pale and thin when Blauchner knew him in seventh and eighth grade. The immigrant boy wore the school-mandated uniform of khaki pants and a white, black or red polo shirt. He often ate lunch in the cafeteria with Blauchner and friends of Ethiopian and Bengali descent.

Dzhokhar studied hard and stayed out of trouble, according to Blauchner, and went on to win a scholarship, according to media reports. He was a student at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth, according to media reports.

"He never seemed disgruntled," Blauchner said. "He never seemed sad. We weren't the nerdy kids, but we were more into academics."


He was just like me. It's really sad how all of this happened. I hope that he's okay. It would be even sadder if he died and we never had the chance to hear about what led him to this point.
posted by dubusadus at 6:06 PM on April 19, 2013 [3 favorites]


He ran away on foot according to some reports, not car.

Pretty sure it was Massachusetts State Police who said during the most recent press conference that the suspect escaped on foot. No confirmation about driving over the brother at all.
posted by lullaby at 6:06 PM on April 19, 2013


On NPR, CNN and ABC news lots of repeated explanations of what flash grenade is and does.

What it is: Grenade. What it does: Flash.
posted by Sys Rq at 6:07 PM on April 19, 2013 [5 favorites]


My hyperbole meter goes from 1 all the way to the most tennest thing you wouldn't even believe like times infinity.
posted by Cold Lurkey at 6:07 PM on April 19, 2013 [5 favorites]


I'm often very cynical about police officers, but I've got to hand it to BPD, they did a hell of a job.
posted by wintermind at 6:07 PM on April 19, 2013 [5 favorites]


I would expect it to take a little bit of time to sort out jurisdiction?

Apparently not; their actions killed a foreign national so it's a federal crime. (WARNING: link to earlier ginormous thread)
posted by one more dead town's last parade at 6:08 PM on April 19, 2013


Man, 10am Monday to 9pm Friday, worst marathon time ever, right?
posted by klangklangston at 6:08 PM on April 19, 2013 [5 favorites]


On NPR, CNN and ABC news lots of repeated explanations of what flash grenade is and does.

What it is: Grenade. What it does: Flash.


It bangs too!
posted by batou_ at 6:08 PM on April 19, 2013




What it is: Grenade. What it does: Flash.

Also, sets fires. Depending on model, apparently.
posted by ChurchHatesTucker at 6:09 PM on April 19, 2013


Boston Police Dept tweet: "In our time of rejoicing, let us not forget the families of Martin Richard, Lingzi Lu, Krystle Campbell and Officer Sean Collier."
posted by ifandonlyif at 6:09 PM on April 19, 2013 [30 favorites]


FBI should get credit, too. According to the news, they were involved as well.
posted by CheeseDigestsAll at 6:09 PM on April 19, 2013 [1 favorite]


Shuck it Graham. Shuck it long and shuck it hard.

Ha. Cheers to Boston!
posted by octobersurprise at 6:10 PM on April 19, 2013 [1 favorite]


I know there's no real use speculating, but it occurs to me that he may not have been TOO badly injured -- he didn't die from blood loss after, what, 16 hours or so? I just keep thinking, worst case scenario, he dies at the hospital or en route.
posted by mudpuppie at 6:10 PM on April 19, 2013


MissySedai: "Do we know that for certain yet? I would expect it to take a little bit of time to sort out jurisdiction?"

The terrorism charges will be federal; since the officer who died was a state, not a federal officer, the murder charges will likely be state charges.
posted by Dr. Zira at 6:10 PM on April 19, 2013 [1 favorite]


Ugh. I hadn't read Lindsay Graham's tweets before now. What a disgrace.
posted by tyllwin at 6:10 PM on April 19, 2013 [3 favorites]


NBC saying he's been Mirandized by FBI
posted by zombieflanders at 6:10 PM on April 19, 2013 [6 favorites]


Given that Boston is due whatever small joys it can get for a while, here's hoping that tomorrow, the Bruins beat the Penguins, the Celtics crush the Knicks, and the Red Sox beat the fucking snot out of the Royals. It'd really be the very least that this shitty week could do.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 6:10 PM on April 19, 2013 [1 favorite]


He ran away on foot according to some reports, not car.
Pretty sure it was Massachusetts State Police who said during the most recent press conference that the suspect escaped on foot. No confirmation about driving over the brother at all.


I read that he took off in the car, drove over his brother, drove toward the police who were chasing him, drove 1/4 of a mile away or so, then escaped on foot. Makes more sense.
posted by banished at 6:10 PM on April 19, 2013


Suspect is now heading to Level 1 Trauma Unit at Beth Israel Hospital.
posted by wenestvedt at 6:11 PM on April 19, 2013 [1 favorite]


NBC showed a Boston SWAT truck driving by the cheering crowd. Someone on the truck's loudspeaker said "Thank you. It was a pleasure. It was a pleasure."
posted by Silly Ashles at 6:11 PM on April 19, 2013 [4 favorites]


I've run out of favorites long ago, but there have been hundreds of great comments here, so just assume I'm favoriting you in my heart.
posted by drezdn at 6:11 PM on April 19, 2013 [4 favorites]


Also, sets fires. Depending on model, apparently.

I think they call that the Philly model.
posted by The 10th Regiment of Foot at 6:11 PM on April 19, 2013


I can actually hear people cheering the cops on Mt Auburn Street, about 1/2 mile away.
posted by not_on_display at 6:11 PM on April 19, 2013 [11 favorites]


It sounds like Boston will be still doing serious drinking and won't stop for a while.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 6:11 PM on April 19, 2013 [1 favorite]


Greg Ball, NY State Senator: @ball4ny So, scum bag #2 in custody. Who wouldn't use torture on this punk to save more lives?

Liz Cheney: @Liz_Cheney: NBC reporting Obama admin will treat terrorist as a "criminal" and not enemy combatant. Will Obama allow him to lawyer up?

Well, that didn't take long. What the fuck.
posted by The Notorious SRD at 6:11 PM on April 19, 2013 [9 favorites]


Obama is literally skyping Graham just to moon him right now.
posted by zombieflanders at 6:11 PM on April 19, 2013 [3 favorites]


You can... run out of favorites?
posted by Earl the Polliwog at 6:12 PM on April 19, 2013 [9 favorites]


Older brother was still alive when transported to the hospital:

"When Tsarnaev arrived, he immediately went into cardiac arrest. CPR was performed until a team of doctors could attempt to resuscitate him, inserting chest tubes to treat potential injuries and gain vascular access to give the patient what Schoenfeld described as "massive blood transfusions."

Tsarnaev suffered from massive, penetrating injuries and was pronounced dead at 1:35 a.m. His body was turned over to law enforcement so that it can be examined by forensic experts, medical examiners and investigators to determine the source of his injuries."

(In response to statements that he died at the scene.)
posted by gingerbeer at 6:12 PM on April 19, 2013 [1 favorite]


Will Obama allow him to lawyer up?

Uh, he better.
posted by lullaby at 6:13 PM on April 19, 2013 [11 favorites]


Dr. Zira: "They can do both. McVeigh was tried in state court as well."

Correction: The state decided not to try him on the 160 civilian deaths because the feds had already sentenced him to death.
posted by Dr. Zira at 6:13 PM on April 19, 2013


Andy Borowitz ‏(@BorowitzReport)
BREAKING: NATION CHEERS END OF CNN'S COVERAGE
posted by DirtyOldTown at 6:13 PM on April 19, 2013 [56 favorites]


I just hope when the dust settles and we finally get to learn the real story, the press repeats the corrected facts and sequence of events as often and as urgently as it reported all the stuff that later proved to be false, because I'll be damned if I feel like I really know what just happened (especially that weird 7-11 robbery thing and the gazillion or so other IEDs that either were or weren't hidden all over Boston depending on what you read).
posted by saulgoodman at 6:13 PM on April 19, 2013 [5 favorites]


Pete Williams via MSNBC he'll be true for terrorism in Boston under federal jurisdiction unless he asks for a change of venue.

Yeah... I'd definitely request a change of venue.
posted by sonika at 6:13 PM on April 19, 2013


How do we thank the cops in Boston?

Put a noise ban on the city for 2-3 days so they can get some sleep.
posted by bendy at 6:14 PM on April 19, 2013 [4 favorites]


Boston Police Dept tweet: "In our time of rejoicing, let us not forget the families of Martin Richard, Lingzi Lu, Krystle Campbell and Officer Sean Collier."

There's going to be a lot of bagpipes playing "Amazing Grace" over the next few days. What'll be different is that these'll probably make me cry.
posted by benito.strauss at 6:14 PM on April 19, 2013 [5 favorites]


Yeah... I'd definitely request a change of venue.

There aren't any federal courts on the moon.
posted by one more dead town's last parade at 6:15 PM on April 19, 2013 [8 favorites]


I want the President to decide who can have a lawyer. /rightwingwackoworld
posted by zerobyproxy at 6:15 PM on April 19, 2013 [2 favorites]


ABC News reporting that the suspect will not be read his Miranda rights, due to some legal precedent that allows skipping that in situations where imminent danger seems apparent.

Basically, they want to get as much information out of him, as quickly as possible, with as few roadblocks as possible.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 6:15 PM on April 19, 2013


How do we thank the cops in Boston?

NO CRIMEING, CRIMER! AT LEES FOR FEW DAYZ TIME.
posted by sweetkid at 6:16 PM on April 19, 2013 [20 favorites]


Now Boston PD can get back to busting up house shows.
posted by evisceratordeath at 6:16 PM on April 19, 2013 [1 favorite]


Can I get a quick recommendation for live coverage, please?
posted by jokeefe at 6:16 PM on April 19, 2013


I'll be damned if I feel like I really know what just happened (especially that weird 7-11 robbery thing and the gazillion or so other IEDs that either were or weren't hidden all oger Boston depending on what you read)

Ain't that the truth. I feel more muddled now than I did yesterday-- it seems like every detail in dispute: when his brother died, whether he drove over his brother, if they robbed the 7-11, if there is a 3rd suspect. I'm sure I'm leaving stuff out.
posted by Secret Life of Gravy at 6:17 PM on April 19, 2013


Thanks for this thread, guys.
posted by blurker at 6:17 PM on April 19, 2013 [1 favorite]


ABC News reporting that the suspect will not be read his Miranda rights, due to some legal precedent that allows skipping that in situations where imminent danger seems apparent.

I've been ignoring ABC since their bullshit article earlier today trying to cobble together a link between the brothers and Chechnyan extremists.
posted by MissySedai at 6:17 PM on April 19, 2013 [1 favorite]


Yes, they want Obama to decide who gets a lawyer, while simultaneously thinking he's a Kenyan socialist impostor. The cognitive dissonance, it burns.
posted by tyllwin at 6:17 PM on April 19, 2013 [8 favorites]


Weird news conflicts continue, I read he'd already been Mirandized.
posted by sonika at 6:17 PM on April 19, 2013


Now that everything has settled down, do we have an answer on how Omarion is doing?
posted by zombieflanders at 6:18 PM on April 19, 2013 [1 favorite]


Now Boston PD can get back to busting up house shows.

Have you heard of any good ones lately with the punk rock music, righteous dude?
posted by drezdn at 6:18 PM on April 19, 2013 [20 favorites]


I'll be damned if I feel like I really know what just happened
Yeah. I'm hoping that they preserved some evidence of the exploded or unexploded ordinance that the suspects were reported to have.
posted by evidenceofabsence at 6:18 PM on April 19, 2013


Police did a great job, def - but would they have found him if the neighbor lady didn't see the blood near the boat?
posted by Eyebeams at 6:18 PM on April 19, 2013


Now Boston PD can get back to busting up house shows.

They should hold the shows in boats. It'll take the fuzz another day to even find them.
posted by ChurchHatesTucker at 6:18 PM on April 19, 2013 [12 favorites]


Yes, they want Obama to decide who gets a lawyer, while simultaneously thinking he's a Kenyan socialist impostor.

They would have probably complained either way.
posted by drezdn at 6:18 PM on April 19, 2013


Personally I think we should invade Russia. Seems proportionate.
posted by seemoreglass at 6:19 PM on April 19, 2013


NBC saying he's been Mirandized by FBI

ABC News reporting that the suspect will not be read his Miranda rights, due to some legal precedent that allows skipping that in situations where imminent danger seems apparen
t.

Add it to the list.
posted by Secret Life of Gravy at 6:19 PM on April 19, 2013


Yeah, NBC said the might not choose to Mirandize him, but later reported that he had been.
posted by CheeseDigestsAll at 6:19 PM on April 19, 2013


IANAL: Are Miranda rights subject to take-backsies?
posted by condour75 at 6:19 PM on April 19, 2013 [9 favorites]


Police did a great job, def - but would they have found him if the neighbor lady didn't see the blood near the boat?

And only a short distance from their friggin' command center!
posted by The 10th Regiment of Foot at 6:19 PM on April 19, 2013


Guys. GUYS. I just heard Brian Williams say "pahty wicked hahd." My life is complete.
posted by zombieflanders at 6:19 PM on April 19, 2013 [35 favorites]


What was the tl;dr on him being tracked to the boat?
posted by unSane at 6:20 PM on April 19, 2013


What it is: Grenade. What it does: Flash.

It's also really loud and hot. I blame one for some of my tinnitus. I had one go off near me when I was in the Guard. It was supposed to land several dozen feet in front of us, but the dumbass that threw it hit a tree branch and it landed at out feet. I even had the presence of mind to put my fingers in my ears. I'm not sure I've ever heard anything louder and I've fired shotguns and such.
posted by cjorgensen at 6:20 PM on April 19, 2013 [2 favorites]


@billmon1: Sorta like way we treat your dad as "human being" MT @Liz_Cheney: NBC says Obama admin to treat terrorist as "criminal" not enemy combatant.
posted by zombieflanders at 6:20 PM on April 19, 2013 [9 favorites]


MSNBC saying that S2 has significant blood loss? I have the sound off where I am.
posted by ChurchHatesTucker at 6:20 PM on April 19, 2013


James Brown still dead
posted by The corpse in the library at 6:21 PM on April 19, 2013


Wonder if the boat's owner's insurance covers bullet holes.
posted by DBAPaul at 6:21 PM on April 19, 2013


IANAL: Are Miranda rights subject to take-backsies?

I know this is a joke, but the more common method is to never-givesies and then find a loophole to keep the evidence in.
posted by benbenson at 6:21 PM on April 19, 2013 [1 favorite]


unSane: Boat owner or neighbor saw the shrink wrap on boat was cut open and there was blood around the opening.
posted by not_on_display at 6:21 PM on April 19, 2013


HIT FAVORITE LIMIT. Guess it's time to go home. OH WAIT I NEVER LEFT. Guess it's time to leave the house!!!!
posted by sonika at 6:21 PM on April 19, 2013 [11 favorites]


Neighbor saw hole in boat cover, with blood.
posted by Feisty at 6:21 PM on April 19, 2013


From boston.com's live feed:
"Shelley Murphy of the Globe reports that the suspect is being taken to Beth Israel Hospital in Boston, which has a Level 1 trauma unit -- an indication that he may have lost a lot of blood or is badly injured."
posted by evidenceofabsence at 6:22 PM on April 19, 2013


unSane, what I heard is that the owner noticed a ladder that hadn't been there before, and called the cops.
posted by desjardins at 6:22 PM on April 19, 2013


Thanks MeFi! Best of the web (and other media) as usual.
posted by islander at 6:22 PM on April 19, 2013 [1 favorite]


unSane: The Door-to-door teams came to that house right after 6. When they approached the backyard where there is a boat and a garage shots were fired by suspect at officers. Officers fell back and called for backup. Backup came.
posted by midmarch snowman at 6:22 PM on April 19, 2013


And since this is Massachusetts, we all can light a celebratory joint! WOOWOO!
posted by not_on_display at 6:23 PM on April 19, 2013 [3 favorites]


A bomb disposal robot was used to tip the boat supposedly, to disorient suspect. But he was really weak anyway, has lost a lot of blood. He still might not survive, but obviously they're going to pull out all the stop to keep him alive.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 6:23 PM on April 19, 2013


MSNBC saying that S2 has significant blood loss?

If there's a hospital that can keep him alive, it's in Boston.
posted by Countess Elena at 6:23 PM on April 19, 2013 [3 favorites]


I love this place.
posted by Hop123 at 6:23 PM on April 19, 2013 [1 favorite]


You can... run out of favorites?

I'm out too...I believe the limit is 100 in a rolling 24-hour period.
posted by DevilsAdvocate at 6:23 PM on April 19, 2013


Shelly Murphy's twitter.
posted by evidenceofabsence at 6:23 PM on April 19, 2013


unSane, what I heard is that the owner noticed a ladder that hadn't been there before, and called the cops.

Add it to the list.
posted by Secret Life of Gravy at 6:23 PM on April 19, 2013


NBC rolling video shot by a neighbor outside their window during the shootout.
posted by CheeseDigestsAll at 6:23 PM on April 19, 2013


Anybody know if they can transfuse him in the ambulance?
posted by LobsterMitten at 6:23 PM on April 19, 2013 [1 favorite]


This has ended as well as could have been expected. Now it's time for the US to show the world what the rule of law looks like in action.
posted by tommasz at 6:23 PM on April 19, 2013 [18 favorites]


Small up-side on a mostly down week: got to see a video of ElementaryPenguin's daughter dancing.
posted by benito.strauss at 6:23 PM on April 19, 2013 [3 favorites]


Displaced residents are being allowed to go home.
posted by not_on_display at 6:25 PM on April 19, 2013


IANAL: Are Miranda rights subject to take-backsies?

I know this is a joke, but the more common method is to never-givesies and then find a loophole to keep the evidence in.


There is a public safety exception to Miranda, where suspects can be interrogated while in custody if not doing so would expose the public to "imminent danger".

I would expect that outside of "are there any more bombs out there that we should know about?", there isn't much else that would qualify as "imminent danger" in this situation, so it's pretty likely that once it was established that it was all over, he was Mirandized quickly.

There isn't much that's more disappointing than a perp getting off on a Miranda technicality.
posted by MissySedai at 6:25 PM on April 19, 2013 [2 favorites]


Anybody know if they can transfuse him in the ambulance?

If they don't know his blood type, how quickly can they type it?
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 6:25 PM on April 19, 2013 [1 favorite]


Anyone know if he has health insurance?
posted by desjardins at 6:26 PM on April 19, 2013 [6 favorites]


So BPD didn't shoot any innocents, right? Good on them. LA should be so lucky.

#1 lesson from all this: pay no attention to network news. It is utterly useless, bordering on fraudulent.
posted by five fresh fish at 6:26 PM on April 19, 2013 [2 favorites]


Journalist on AlJazeera UK just actually cut off a psychiatrist who seemed to just be repeating things she heard on Reddit and Twitter and completely stopped the interview while she was mid-sentence. I like having lots of news channels.
posted by joboe at 6:26 PM on April 19, 2013 [14 favorites]


Anyone know if he has health insurance?

It's Massachusetts; it's the law. ROMNEYCARE!
posted by Dr.Enormous at 6:27 PM on April 19, 2013 [45 favorites]




Anyone know if he has health insurance?

I think he does as of 8:42 this evening.
posted by one more dead town's last parade at 6:27 PM on April 19, 2013 [2 favorites]


Well, different health insurance, anyway.
posted by one more dead town's last parade at 6:28 PM on April 19, 2013


Fox news closed caption: Boston Marathon bomber Zooey Deschanel in custody.
posted by Skygazer at 6:28 PM on April 19, 2013 [21 favorites]


I'd be very surprised if they didn't Mirandize him. The public safety exception is intended for cases in which there's an immediate prospective threat; it would be an appropriate exception if they were trying to find out whether or not there were more devices in the immediate vicinity, so they may use that exception to determine whether or not there are other devices/dangers that need to be secured. Once they've got that info, then they'd probably immediately Mirandize him, rather than risk handing defendants' counsel an argument on a motion to suppress.
posted by Dr. Zira at 6:28 PM on April 19, 2013


Good live feed for news conference? boston.com is wigging out my browser
posted by annsunny at 6:29 PM on April 19, 2013


I would just like to thank the person who named their tactical vehicle "Bearcat" for an oustanding job and extend an invitation to him or her to enjoy conversation and spaghetti dinner with me later this evening.
posted by passerby at 6:29 PM on April 19, 2013 [3 favorites]


Every Bostonian on TV right now: CAPS LOCK IS HOW I FEEL INSIDE NEWS TEAM
posted by zombieflanders at 6:29 PM on April 19, 2013 [9 favorites]


Is Zooey a Democrat? They often mix that up.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 6:29 PM on April 19, 2013


No more hurting people. Peace.

.
.
.
.
.
posted by Duke999R at 6:30 PM on April 19, 2013 [36 favorites]


Yes, I'd like a decent live stream link too please, I'm trying to watch 7News and it's agonizing, keeps dropping out. Is MSNBC any better?
posted by jokeefe at 6:30 PM on April 19, 2013


According to my friend, who used to work closed captioning:

"just a wrong keystroke on the captioner's steno machine (they save short forms of frequently used names)."
posted by incessant at 6:30 PM on April 19, 2013 [3 favorites]


Putting on the devil's advocate hat for a moment: if the President (or any other official with authority in the case) wanted him to be treated as an enemy combatant rather than a criminal, how much of a challenge would it be to do this? IIRC, both McVeigh and the Beltway Sniper were tried as criminals. Could a post-Bush President rip up case law and precedent under post-9/11 powers and decree him to be an enemy combatant?
posted by acb at 6:30 PM on April 19, 2013


CAPS LAWK!!!
posted by The 10th Regiment of Foot at 6:30 PM on April 19, 2013 [2 favorites]


NYPOST: CAPS LOCK IS HOW I FEEL INSIDE NEWS TEAM
posted by Bohemia Mountain at 6:30 PM on April 19, 2013 [2 favorites]


thank the person who named their tactical vehicle "Bearcat" for an oustanding job

Mostly so I could hear all those Boston accents saying "beah" and "beahcat" on the scanner.
posted by lullaby at 6:30 PM on April 19, 2013 [4 favorites]


Charlie Pierce Alert: MSNBC
posted by Room 641-A at 6:31 PM on April 19, 2013


annsunny, wcbv is working. (But the commentary is really inane.)
posted by mudpuppie at 6:31 PM on April 19, 2013


[Sorry MissySendai, I should have previewed!]
posted by Dr. Zira at 6:31 PM on April 19, 2013 [1 favorite]


...And the frat-type guys two doors down who were yelling and hooting and annoying me early Monday afternoon are hooting and hollering again.

I'm OK with this.
posted by A dead Quaker at 6:32 PM on April 19, 2013


If he's a student at UMASS Dartmouth, he has at least student health insurance.

Reuters reporting he's in critical condition at MGH.
posted by sonika at 6:32 PM on April 19, 2013


Damn you autocorrect!!
posted by blurker at 6:32 PM on April 19, 2013


There isn't much that's more disappointing than a perp getting off on a Miranda technicality.


Aside from institutionalized disregard for civil rights?
posted by ChurchHatesTucker at 6:32 PM on April 19, 2013 [15 favorites]


I'm so relieved right now. Keep posting wicked awesome things because I want to hit my favorite limit tonight! *raises my bottle of Sam's to MeFi*
posted by Ruki at 6:32 PM on April 19, 2013 [1 favorite]


This has ended as well as could have been expected. Now it's time for the US to show the world what the rule of law looks like in action.

Or that its people comprehend how government and military actions taken on their behalf could engender so much rage that someone would want to commit acts of such cruelty and brutality?

These attacks don't happen without some cause, especially in light of younger brother's background story. There's political power in the jihadist message for a reason. The Tsarnaev brothers weren't foaming-at-the-mouth, psychologically unbalanced religious nuts. They were rage-filled young men who decided to find a horrible way of releasing all of their pent-up anger at the world they were expected to be a part of.

I don't know, it's just all so fucking sad reading about them and knowing the ugly side of global brinksmanship. I don't know how you could cheer with such abandon.
posted by dubusadus at 6:32 PM on April 19, 2013 [1 favorite]


Thanks, mudpuppie!

Right now, boston globe is working
posted by annsunny at 6:33 PM on April 19, 2013


If they don't know his blood type, how quickly can they type it?

O- is universal donor. AB+ is universal recipient.
posted by asockpuppet at 6:33 PM on April 19, 2013 [5 favorites]


I'd like to see a compilation of CNN's ridiculous coverage of this whole ordeal. Here's one of their web writers channeling Dr. Seuss.
posted by mediated self at 6:33 PM on April 19, 2013 [2 favorites]


The story I really want to hear is how the FBI(?) identified the guys, i.e. "this is how it's done, Reddit".
posted by benito.strauss at 6:33 PM on April 19, 2013 [3 favorites]


Said it before this week... people are doing things the right goddamn way. Taken alive and mirandized, no less! World class police work, start to finish.
posted by Slap*Happy at 6:34 PM on April 19, 2013 [6 favorites]


Now it's time for the US to show the world what the rule of law looks like in action.
Now it's time for the US to show Lindsey Graham what the rule of law looks like in action.
posted by Flunkie at 6:34 PM on April 19, 2013 [21 favorites]


the person who named their tactical vehicle "Bearcat"

FWIW it's proper name actually is BearCat - Ballistic Engineered Armored Response Counter Attack Truck.
posted by ceribus peribus at 6:34 PM on April 19, 2013 [1 favorite]


How would he get off on a Miranda issue? Do you expect his confession to be necessary for a conviction?
posted by Bulgaroktonos at 6:35 PM on April 19, 2013 [1 favorite]


suspect in custody
posted by Bookhouse at 6:35 PM on April 19, 2013 [6 favorites]


Oh man, JUST checked the news and then came to this thread. Hooray! Hooray dispatch! Hooray police (and I never say that!) Hooray EOD! Hooray fire! Hooray EMS! Hooray everybody!
posted by WidgetAlley at 6:35 PM on April 19, 2013 [3 favorites]


I don't like that Carmen Ortiz is getting airtime, but whatevs.
posted by Dr. Zira at 6:35 PM on April 19, 2013 [6 favorites]


Anybody know if they can transfuse him in the ambulance?

If they don't know his blood type, how quickly can they type it?


The paramedics can hook him up to an IV, but I don't think ambulances carry blood.

I was taught that ERs use O- for transfusions.

IAMANEMT-B, but not your EMT-B.
posted by topoisomerase at 6:36 PM on April 19, 2013 [2 favorites]


Now it's time for the US to show the world what the rule of law looks like in action.

What does this mean? The world doesn't know what the rule of law looks like and we need to show them? The heck this is?
posted by sweetkid at 6:37 PM on April 19, 2013 [6 favorites]


I'm O- and I frequently get calls from Red Cross when I miss a donation. They use O- for emergencies and children.
posted by RussHy at 6:37 PM on April 19, 2013


I would imagine that if they're skipping Miranda it's to ask about potential accomplices and/or weaponry that may or may not still be floating around.
posted by The Hamms Bear at 6:37 PM on April 19, 2013


If anyone knows a legit cop bar in Boston/Watertown, MeMail me details. I'm seriously considering calling and asking if they'll take my credit card number for cops to drink against this weekend (up to some amount).
posted by Lulu's Pink Converse at 6:38 PM on April 19, 2013 [7 favorites]


Menino: Thanks all the police and feds, "that's how government works well"
posted by zombieflanders at 6:38 PM on April 19, 2013


Sorry, but does Menino look/sound kind of drunk?
posted by mudpuppie at 6:38 PM on April 19, 2013


Someone posted a twit pic of President Obama being briefed about the situation (yesterday, I think) in the other thread. Or am I mistaken? I can't seem to locate the twitpic account - is it the White House?

Anyways, I'd love to see if they upload another one of President Obama reacting or being briefed again post-custody, I'm guessing that moment is documented.
posted by joseph conrad is fully awesome at 6:39 PM on April 19, 2013


Could be pain meds. He had surgery for a broken leg & checked himself out of the hospital on Monday (when he likely shouldn't have).
posted by anastasiav at 6:39 PM on April 19, 2013 [1 favorite]


Menino has been really sick. He left the hospital to attend the interfaith service (yesterday?)
posted by sweetkid at 6:39 PM on April 19, 2013


I don't know, it's just all so fucking sad reading about them and knowing the ugly side of global brinksmanship. I don't know how you could cheer with such abandon.

People are just relieved the scary thing is over and we can be proud of how it was done for once.
posted by bleep at 6:40 PM on April 19, 2013 [3 favorites]


What does this mean? The world doesn't know what the rule of law looks like and we need to show them? The heck this is?

It means we fucked up under Bush and it's time to show we can do it right. Well, it's what It's the meaning I apply to it; original poster might have intended differently.
posted by benito.strauss at 6:40 PM on April 19, 2013 [4 favorites]


Celebratory beers.
posted by Talia Devane at 6:40 PM on April 19, 2013


These two threads have been fantastic. Thank you, everyone.
posted by the_bone at 6:40 PM on April 19, 2013 [2 favorites]


Could be pain meds. He had surgery for a broken leg & checked himself out of the hospital on Monday (when he likely shouldn't have).

Oh, right, that could totally be it. (On preview: Not sarcasm.)
posted by mudpuppie at 6:40 PM on April 19, 2013


Plus, they don't call him "Mumbles" Menino for nothing.
posted by sacre_bleu at 6:41 PM on April 19, 2013 [1 favorite]


acb: Putting on the devil's advocate hat for a moment: if the President (or any other official with authority in the case) wanted him to be treated as an enemy combatant rather than a criminal, how much of a challenge would it be to do this? IIRC, both McVeigh and the Beltway Sniper were tried as criminals. Could a post-Bush President rip up case law and precedent under post-9/11 powers and decree him to be an enemy combatant?

He's a US citizen, so I sure hope that the answer to that is no.
posted by donajo at 6:41 PM on April 19, 2013 [1 favorite]


he'll be [tried] for terrorism in Boston under federal jurisdiction unless he asks for a change of venue.

Yeah... I'd definitely request a change of venue.


I don't know about that. If he's facing the death penalty on federal charges, he might be better off doing that in Massachusetts. The death penalty can only be imposed by a jury. He and his attorneys might decide that they'd rather put that question to a jury made up of Massachusetts citizens, citizens of a state that has rejected the death penalty, rather than move the trial to another venue where the population might be more supportive of the death penalty.

He's likely to get convicted wherever he's tried. But he may be less likely to be put to death in Massachusetts.

At least we can hope.
posted by alms at 6:41 PM on April 19, 2013


What does this mean? The world doesn't know what the rule of law looks like and we need to show them? The heck this is?

Here's what this means: Given the shameful legacy of Guantanamo Bay, it's time the US follows it's own laws with regards to dealing with criminals, regardless of their crimes. So far, that has been the case here. It needs to continue with a trial and proper legal representation.
posted by tommasz at 6:42 PM on April 19, 2013 [8 favorites]


The world doesn't know what the rule of law looks like and we need to show them?

Maybe the meaning is we're going to show the world we've remembered how to do that?
posted by absalom at 6:42 PM on April 19, 2013 [6 favorites]


Sorry, but does Menino look/sound kind of drunk?

The local political watchers call him "Mumbles" Menino. There has never been a more inept public speaker in such a high office... he's a backroom dealmaker without peer, tho, for good or for ill.
posted by Slap*Happy at 6:43 PM on April 19, 2013


President Obama to deliver a statement at 9:45 pm at WH.
posted by wensink at 6:43 PM on April 19, 2013


Ok that makes more sense. The original comment did not read that way to me though, no "we've learned how to apply the rule of law" there.
posted by sweetkid at 6:43 PM on April 19, 2013


Ah, Motherfucker! The GF just pointed out that Carmen Ortiz would have jurisdiction here.

Goddamit.
posted by ChurchHatesTucker at 6:44 PM on April 19, 2013 [1 favorite]


I'm O- but I'm only 100 lbs so I can't donate :(
posted by desjardins at 6:44 PM on April 19, 2013


Just coming back after class and such. Anyone have a good link to a summary of the past couple hours?
posted by DoubleLune at 6:44 PM on April 19, 2013


I'd met Menino a couple of times many years ago. He just talks like that. He may have sounded a little less loud there -- that could have been cause he's been in and out of the hospital lately -- but he sounded otherwise normal to me.

He also swears like a sailor.
posted by not_on_display at 6:44 PM on April 19, 2013 [1 favorite]


Thank you, everyone. I'm grateful for this community.
posted by illenion at 6:45 PM on April 19, 2013 [3 favorites]


What's the animus against Carmen Ortiz?
posted by mudpuppie at 6:45 PM on April 19, 2013


Kudos to the police on this difficult case.
posted by caddis at 6:46 PM on April 19, 2013


Whoa, they just reported that a resident actually looked inside the boat and saw the suspect and then called the cops.
posted by CheeseDigestsAll at 6:46 PM on April 19, 2013


FUTURE NEWS: Hangovers in Watertown, Boston area more massive than ever tomorrow.
posted by vrakatar at 6:46 PM on April 19, 2013 [6 favorites]


mudpuppie: "What's the animus against Carmen Ortiz?"

Aaron Swartz.
posted by Dr. Zira at 6:46 PM on April 19, 2013 [12 favorites]


Someone posted a twit pic...

White House photos on twitter come from the official photographer, and they're collected on the White House Flickr account. The photo you saw is likely there, and I'll bet the one you're hoping to see will be as well. It's an awesome collection.
posted by donnagirl at 6:46 PM on April 19, 2013 [2 favorites]


The animus is what she did to Aaron Swartz.
posted by Unified Theory at 6:46 PM on April 19, 2013 [2 favorites]


I'm O- but I'm only 100 lbs so I can't donate :(

Platelets , go give platelets!
posted by The 10th Regiment of Foot at 6:47 PM on April 19, 2013 [4 favorites]


Is there word on the suspect's condition?
posted by jokeefe at 6:47 PM on April 19, 2013


Carmen Ortiz is who was prosecuting Aaron Swartz, before he died.
posted by gingerbeer at 6:47 PM on April 19, 2013 [1 favorite]


Suspect is in serious condition.
posted by zombieflanders at 6:47 PM on April 19, 2013 [1 favorite]


Ah, okay: In serious condition at hospital (from the news conference)
posted by jokeefe at 6:47 PM on April 19, 2013


Oh, I didn't realize that was her. Yuck.
posted by mudpuppie at 6:47 PM on April 19, 2013 [2 favorites]


MIT officer was "assassinated in his cruiser"
posted by zombieflanders at 6:49 PM on April 19, 2013


It does look like Ortiz's office is currently on it. That's her at the press conference, no?
posted by evidenceofabsence at 6:51 PM on April 19, 2013


Oh, fucking shut up about the death penalty, Carmen Ortiz.
posted by zombieflanders at 6:51 PM on April 19, 2013 [2 favorites]


I'm O- but I'm only 100 lbs so I can't donate :(

Platelets , go give platelets!


O- folks aren't universal donors for platelets. Confusingly, AB folks are.
posted by topoisomerase at 6:52 PM on April 19, 2013 [3 favorites]


Photo of the suspect in custody Note: Blood.
posted by drezdn at 6:52 PM on April 19, 2013 [3 favorites]


I know there was tons of false info flying around, but last night, when people were talking about the MIT shooting, there was a bunch of "shot with his own gun" talk. Has anyone picked up and commented on that or is it completely fictional?
posted by neroli at 6:53 PM on April 19, 2013


wow, he looks skinny
posted by desjardins at 6:53 PM on April 19, 2013


Photo of the suspect in custody Note: Blood.

Wow, he is so wee.
posted by sweetkid at 6:53 PM on April 19, 2013 [4 favorites]


I read somewhere that the MIT cop never had a chance to draw his weapon, that it was found holstered. I guess that's why they're characterizing it as an assassination.
posted by Rhomboid at 6:53 PM on April 19, 2013


Double jeopardy doesn't prohibit separate federal and state trials. If the US Attorney's office has been in the loop on this, that means they've probably already made some charging decisions. Fed trial will probably go first; Commonwealth may wait on the outcome of the fed trial decide whether or not they want to put the state through the expense of a second trial.
posted by Dr. Zira at 6:54 PM on April 19, 2013


That doesn't look good. Also, he's so tiny.
posted by Ruki at 6:54 PM on April 19, 2013


All 19 year-olds are skinny.
posted by atomicmedia at 6:54 PM on April 19, 2013


Oh, fucking shut up about the death penalty, Carmen Ortiz.

Someone asked her if they would seek the death penalty and she gave the proper response. What do you want?
posted by benbenson at 6:55 PM on April 19, 2013 [1 favorite]


He doesn't even look like he's fully grown.
posted by evidenceofabsence at 6:55 PM on April 19, 2013


One thing that actually makes sense to me is the possibility of Jack Ruby killing Lee Harvey Oswald out of anger rather than conspiracy. Just seeing people's rage on social media and other places directed at the bombers, it seems reasonable that someone could be pissed enough at Oswald to want to kill him.
posted by drezdn at 6:56 PM on April 19, 2013 [4 favorites]


All 19 year olds are skinny.

So, so wrong.
posted by benito.strauss at 6:56 PM on April 19, 2013 [7 favorites]


I think he will be under high security for the rest of his natural life, solitary or not.
posted by Countess Elena at 6:56 PM on April 19, 2013


Mod note: Jesus, people, do I really have to explain about how prison rape is a subject that actually requires more thought that casual remarks and jokes?
posted by restless_nomad (staff) at 6:56 PM on April 19, 2013 [96 favorites]


I was pretty fat at 19, fyi.
posted by Bulgaroktonos at 6:56 PM on April 19, 2013


One thing that actually makes sense to me is the possibility of Jack Ruby killing Lee Harvey Oswald out of anger rather than conspiracy. Just seeing people's rage on social media and other places directed at the bombers, it seems reasonable that someone could be pissed enough at Oswald to want to kill him.

Had the same thought when they started tweeting which hospital he was at.
posted by gerryblog at 6:56 PM on April 19, 2013


I'm going to leave the thread alone and just read the paper tomorrow. Thanks for helping me, and everyone else, through this Mefi. Bon Nuit.
posted by vrakatar at 6:56 PM on April 19, 2013 [2 favorites]


This case is of a magnitude that I would expect him to go to the Colorado Supermax prison where Ted Kaczynski and others of similar notoriety and national security interest are incarcerated. No idea what it takes to get placed there, but it seems that notoriety and magnitude of the offense has something to do with it.
posted by Unified Theory at 6:57 PM on April 19, 2013 [2 favorites]


Sorry was speaking about my own experience, BEFORE THE INTERNET.
posted by atomicmedia at 6:58 PM on April 19, 2013


No idea what it takes to get placed there

Quid pro quo, Clarice?
posted by The 10th Regiment of Foot at 6:59 PM on April 19, 2013 [1 favorite]


He was a wrestler. (And come to think of it, his brother was a boxer. Any chance that testosterone + steroids + chaotic/traumatic childhood is not a safe formula?)
posted by argybarg at 6:59 PM on April 19, 2013 [2 favorites]


McVeigh and his toady made it without being shot. The Feds will guard this guy like he's a prince.

Also he looks to be bleeding from the head? That's not a good sign.
posted by 922257033c4a0f3cecdbd819a46d626999d1af4a at 6:59 PM on April 19, 2013


Photo of the suspect in custody Note: Blood.
posted by drezdn at 6:52 PM on April 19 [2 favorites +] [!]


Just an additional warning: there is a very, very gory photo at the top of that guy's twitter account (the one that says "Burn in hell", which I unfortunately clicked on.)
posted by joseph conrad is fully awesome at 6:59 PM on April 19, 2013


mudpuppie: "What's the animus against Carmen Ortiz?"

Aaron Swartz.


And before that Tarek Mehanna, which was at best a perfectly good prosecution presented terribly to the public, and at worst a godawful prosecutorial overreach and abuse of the english language.
posted by Dr.Enormous at 6:59 PM on April 19, 2013 [1 favorite]




That doesn't look good. Also, he's so tiny.

He's been alive for over 20 hours after being shot and summoned the strength to get up and fire when surrounded. Kid's a fighter, I'm betting he pulls through.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 7:02 PM on April 19, 2013 [1 favorite]


I can't even express my admiration for the folks who managed to capture this guy alive.

That is a Big Fucking Deal.
posted by snsranch at 7:02 PM on April 19, 2013 [4 favorites]


But limeonaire, you're saying stuff like this:
it's so unfortunate that two brothers who were so good-looking, so smart, resorted to doing this with their lives.
Kind of directly implies that it would be less unfortunate if they uglier or dumber. You're kind of hung up n physical beauty and it seems to lead you to say silly stuff.
posted by benito.strauss at 7:02 PM on April 19, 2013 [3 favorites]


I think he will be under high security for the rest of his natural life, solitary or not.

So the US doesn't do rehab? Once radicalised, always radicalised? No way the US could change its thinking on that one? Guess not.
posted by de at 7:03 PM on April 19, 2013 [1 favorite]


So glad the cops caught that fucking asshole alive.
posted by BobbyVan at 7:03 PM on April 19, 2013 [2 favorites]


very, very gory photo at the top of that guy's twitter account

That's the brother.
posted by The 10th Regiment of Foot at 7:03 PM on April 19, 2013


Let's all spend tomorrow finding the missing guy who is in no way related to the case!
posted by drezdn at 7:04 PM on April 19, 2013 [8 favorites]


President has come on for his statement.. 10:05 EST
posted by Skygazer at 7:05 PM on April 19, 2013


Barry coming up in a minute.
posted by Kinbote at 7:05 PM on April 19, 2013


President talking now.
posted by sweetkid at 7:05 PM on April 19, 2013


Most of these things in end in suicide by cop, so much of credit for keeping this guy alive goes to he himself for not shooting at people when the game was up.
posted by sideshow at 7:05 PM on April 19, 2013 [1 favorite]


very, very gory photo at the top of that guy's twitter account

That's the brother


Jesus fuck, how does anyone even have that picture?
posted by neroli at 7:05 PM on April 19, 2013 [3 favorites]


But limeonaire, you're saying stuff like this:

it's so unfortunate that two brothers who were so good-looking, so smart, resorted to doing this with their lives.

Kind of directly implies that it would be less unfortunate if they uglier or dumber. You're kind of hung up n physical beauty and it seems to lead you to say silly stuff.


That is completely not what I'm saying, and I am not one to get hung up on physical beauty. Please don't take my remarks out of context. I'm not talking about or implying anything about anyone other than them.

I'm allowed to say it's tragic for two young people with such promise to fall so far, am I not? Especially since I was responding to a post that was talking about the suspects' physical appearance.
posted by limeonaire at 7:06 PM on April 19, 2013 [3 favorites]


Obama's on. It's going to be refreshing when we don't respond to this incident by bombing anyone. (I hope)
posted by terrierhead at 7:06 PM on April 19, 2013 [2 favorites]


de: So the US doesn't do rehab? Once radicalised, always radicalised? No way the US could change its thinking on that one? Guess not.

Um, let's not forget that these guys conducted a major terrorist attack that killed three people, including a child, and was deliberately engineered to maim as many people as possible and cause the maximum amount of suffering. I'm not saying we should pull out his fingernails, but he deserves the life-in-prison sentence he's going to get.
posted by Mitrovarr at 7:07 PM on April 19, 2013 [5 favorites]


de: “So the US doesn't do rehab? Once radicalised, always radicalised? No way the US could change its thinking on that one? Guess not.”

Once upon a time we had a justice system that was divided between two parties: those who believe justice is punishment, and those who believe justice is the rehabilitation of the criminal. (I'm one American who happens to believe both.) Since then, we've generally handed over the mechanisms for punishment and rehabilitation over to big business, which has an interest in keeping people incarcerated. However, with high-profile cases, often we like to maintain the illusion that some sort of real justice has been done.

I do hope that this is one of those cases.
posted by koeselitz at 7:07 PM on April 19, 2013 [5 favorites]


So the US doesn't do rehab? Once radicalised, always radicalised?

You're asking the wrong question. In America, the question will be "does the fucker ever deserve to be free?" The answer will be no.

Let's all spend tomorrow finding the missing guy who is in no way related to the case!

Tomorrow is Earth Day, its the weekend after a stressful week and the date is 4/20. Y'all should know exactly what to do.

Jesus fuck, how does anyone even have that picture?

I heard hospital officials are quite angry that the photo was taken and given out.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 7:07 PM on April 19, 2013 [3 favorites]


Jesus fuck, how does anyone even have that picture?

It's been out for a while, I spared MeFi by not linking it, but as you can see, fist-sized holes was not an exaggeration.
posted by The 10th Regiment of Foot at 7:07 PM on April 19, 2013


So the US doesn't do rehab?

For a guy who bombed a major sporting event killing 3 people - one of whom is a foreign national - and wounding 150+ who then kills a cop while trying to escape? No, not so much. I'm not being glib, the minimum sentencing guidelines wouldn't have him out of prison before he was well over 200 years old.
posted by sonika at 7:08 PM on April 19, 2013 [8 favorites]


And before that Tarek Mehanna, which was at best a perfectly good prosecution presented terribly to the public, and at worst a godawful prosecutorial overreach and abuse of the english language.

And also the Motel Caswell, where her office tried to confiscate a family-owned motel (which would have then been sold at auction) for no good reason whatsoever.
posted by Holy Zarquon's Singing Fish at 7:08 PM on April 19, 2013 [5 favorites]


Any expression of disbelief over how good-looking the two suspects are/were is a pretty normal human reaction. In fact, there's a well-known psychological term for this: the halo effect.

Basically, we humans are incredibly susceptible to believing the following (and this is not linked to intelligence, emotional or otherwise):

What is beautiful is good, and what is good is beautiful.

I learned about it in my social psychology course.
posted by joseph conrad is fully awesome at 7:08 PM on April 19, 2013 [8 favorites]


I still kinda feel like the younger guy was set up or brainwashed in some way by the older one. Maybe just because his social media stuff and his extracurriculars and all made him seem like a normal kid.
posted by sweetkid at 7:08 PM on April 19, 2013 [6 favorites]


Obama taking time to talk about Texas explosion. Good on him.
posted by zombieflanders at 7:11 PM on April 19, 2013 [14 favorites]


Drudge has a link to "that picture" with the fist sized hole blurred out.


I still want to know what in the everloving world would make these two do what they did. I don't understand it. At all.
posted by St. Alia of the Bunnies at 7:11 PM on April 19, 2013 [3 favorites]


Obama is hitting all my "let's not generalize" "let's not speculate until we know the facts" etc buttons mashingly.
posted by Cold Lurkey at 7:11 PM on April 19, 2013 [5 favorites]


To be fair, this is the kind of thing I WANT federal prosecutors working on, not closing cannabis dispensaries and prosecuting Aaron Swartz.
posted by gingerbeer at 7:12 PM on April 19, 2013 [24 favorites]



I still want to know what in the everloving world would make these two do what they did. I don't understand it. At all.


yeah same.
posted by sweetkid at 7:12 PM on April 19, 2013


Brian Williams talking about "the most enduring quote from the president just now."

Because a quote enduring a whole 60 seconds sure is a feat.
posted by audacity at 7:12 PM on April 19, 2013


Alia, if you would kill someone you don't know to preserve the lives of those you love most, then you understand the core of it. IMO.
posted by kavasa at 7:13 PM on April 19, 2013 [3 favorites]


I still want to know what in the everloving world would make these two do what they did. I don't understand it. At all.

I would love to find out as well, but I really suspect that we'll never get a satisfactory explanation. It'll make it even harder to move on, but that's life.
posted by benito.strauss at 7:13 PM on April 19, 2013 [1 favorite]


Drudge has a link to "that picture" with the fist sized hole blurred out.

I'm really curious how that whole was made. From a medical and physiological perspective, seeing the muscle and tissue is fascinating, but Jesus. It's such a senseless waste.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 7:13 PM on April 19, 2013 [1 favorite]


if you would kill someone you don't know to preserve the lives of those you love most, then you understand the core of it. IMO.

what do you mean?
posted by sweetkid at 7:14 PM on April 19, 2013


My president, whatever his other failings, knows what to say when it needs to be said.
posted by Kinbote at 7:14 PM on April 19, 2013 [4 favorites]


if you would kill someone you don't know to preserve the lives of those you love most, then you understand the core of it.

Uh, they killed people they don't know to preserve the lives of no one at all. I don't follow.
posted by murphy slaw at 7:15 PM on April 19, 2013 [1 favorite]


Bulgaroktonos: "How would he get off on a Miranda issue? Do you expect his confession to be necessary for a conviction?"

No, but if the defense counsel negotiates a plea deal to avoid the death penalty, the issue of what evidence is and isn't admissible against what charges may be at issue in the negotiation. For example, we don't know who shot the officer, and if the kid in custody admits to doing it and there's a murder charge there in play instead versus just conspiracy, that could make a difference.
posted by Dr. Zira at 7:15 PM on April 19, 2013


Photo of the suspect in custody Note: Blood.

No wounds to the torso. Good. He's very likely to survive. I want this motherfucker on the stand. I want him to listen to the families of the victims during sentencing, and carry their voices to his grave after a long and unfulfilled life behind bars.

Yeah, he's young. Yeah, he's little. Check through history... skinny little post-adolescents make the most savage soldiers, as they think they have something to prove. He wanted to be a tough guy, to impress his brother, to feel better about himself, to prove he wasn't the nice guy everyone had him pegged as, whatever. He made some choices a decent human being would not make, and now he will be judged for them. Fairly, with legal representation, where the world can see.

I don't say this often, but I'm proud to be an American. This is how we're supposed to deal with this stuff.
posted by Slap*Happy at 7:15 PM on April 19, 2013 [12 favorites]


There is apparently video of both of them walking away from the scene of the explosions when the bombs went off and neither really reacts much. I feel like any argument that the younger brother was an unwitting pawn of his brother and didn't know what he was doing pretty much dies there.
posted by whoaali at 7:15 PM on April 19, 2013 [7 favorites]


The celebrating in Watertown is so loud and boisterous MSNBC had to cut away from Erika Hill because you couldn't hear her at all.
posted by Room 641-A at 7:16 PM on April 19, 2013 [1 favorite]


I feel like any argument supposing anything about his motives or anything is uh very fucking premature.
posted by incessant at 7:16 PM on April 19, 2013 [21 favorites]


Not only have I hit my favorites limit for the day, but I've been unfavoriting things in other threads to free up favorites for these threads. Sorry, Hummingbird musical notation, you're no match for the wit and humanity of the Boston discussions.
posted by Phire at 7:17 PM on April 19, 2013 [14 favorites]


Let's make sure to give credit to one unwitting hero.
posted by evidenceofabsence at 7:17 PM on April 19, 2013 [14 favorites]


Yeah, I've been hearing it outside my window for about an hour, and I live 1/3 mile away from the 7-11 on Mt Auburn.
posted by not_on_display at 7:17 PM on April 19, 2013


There is apparently video of both of them walking away from the scene of the explosions when the bombs went off and neither really reacts much.

Where? Do you have a link?
posted by jason's_planet at 7:17 PM on April 19, 2013


Tomorrow is Earth Day, its the weekend after a stressful week and the date is 4/20. Y'all should know exactly what to do.

Plant a tree?
posted by Skygazer at 7:18 PM on April 19, 2013 [5 favorites]


Are Miranda rights subject to take-backsies?

There is a public safety exception to Miranda...


The Wall Street Journal reported in 2011 that the Obama Justice Department had "significantly expanded" the previous public safety exception to Miranda (from 1984) so that the exception now applies even when the interrogation is "not related to any immediate threat." It looks like it was related to political pressure from the Pete Kings of the world.
posted by mediareport at 7:18 PM on April 19, 2013 [1 favorite]


Just picked up some 90-minute Dogfish Head IPA to toast the capture, toast the excellent public safety response, and to, well, generally get toasted. Big thanks from the West Coast.
posted by porn in the woods at 7:19 PM on April 19, 2013 [3 favorites]


The large wound on the dead brother is a surgical wound.
posted by feste at 7:19 PM on April 19, 2013 [5 favorites]


I'm really curious how that whole was made. From a medical and physiological perspective, seeing the muscle and tissue is fascinating, but Jesus. It's such a senseless waste.

Someone sent me this comment they found from reddit (where else!) earlier -

"It appears that an "emergency thoracotomy" was performed. When a patient arrives "dead" with penetrating chest trauma and recent signs of life, certain criteria must be met before the patient can be officially pronounced dead. In most American hospitals, you aren't "dead" in the case of trauma until you're "decompressed and dead" (meaning a needle/tube placed in both sides of the chest cavity to drain excess air/blood). You can see the 14 gauge catheters that have been placed in the upper portion of the chest just below the clavicle (they are clear with orange tips). This would drain air, but not blood.

Apparently, someone saw fit to crack his chest and give the emergency thoracotomy a try. It is a last ditch effort and rarely leads to survival for the patient. I can't really tell if the penetrating wound below the main incision was an attempt at a chest tube, or if it was a GSW (often times the tubes are just put in through the hole created by the GSW ). It looks like a round went through his left forearm and may have continued on to his chest, depending on the angle of the shot and his arm placement.

There was a 15 minute delay from time of arrival at the ER to official time of death. In those 15 minutes, the chest was rapidly entered using a scalpel, brute force, and a rib spreader. The heart was directly massaged as surgeons looked to clamp/ligate/suture large bleeds and rapidly infuse fluid and whole blood products. They failed to resuscitate him(as happens 90+% of the time with this procedure). Hope this helps you understand what you are seeing!

Source: former ER Tech, Paramedic, Army Cool Guy Medic (ACGM) and soon-to-be medical student."
posted by jamesonandwater at 7:19 PM on April 19, 2013 [59 favorites]


Where? Do you have a link?

No I heard it discussed on tv. I can't remember whether it was MSNBC or CNN, probably MSNBC.
posted by whoaali at 7:19 PM on April 19, 2013


Plant a tree?

Plant four trees.
posted by Slap*Happy at 7:19 PM on April 19, 2013 [15 favorites]


This is the kind of case that prosecutors with political ambitions like because they boost their profiles and win them elections.

So if you were hoping that Carmen Ortiz would pay a political or personal price for Aaron Swartz, well, it's not looking so hot.
posted by notyou at 7:19 PM on April 19, 2013 [9 favorites]


Where? Do you have a link?

No I heard it discussed on tv. I can't remember whether it was MSNBC or CNN, probably MSNBC.


Yes, those very reliable sources.
posted by sweetkid at 7:20 PM on April 19, 2013 [1 favorite]


So, nobody asked this question at the presser a while ago - was this in fact a false flag operation designed to rob Americans of their freedoms ?
posted by Pogo_Fuzzybutt at 7:20 PM on April 19, 2013 [7 favorites]


the Guardian has another, less optimistic photo of #2 just after arrest.

EDIT: Maybe it got taken down already.
posted by OHSnap at 7:21 PM on April 19, 2013


And also, are the CHUDs to blame?
posted by Rhomboid at 7:21 PM on April 19, 2013


This is probably not a popular opinion, but I hope that this young man is treated with compassion until we actually understand what happened from facts.

(This comment is not defending the acts at the marathon).
posted by jjray at 7:21 PM on April 19, 2013 [19 favorites]


Miranda isn't required until the person in custody is being interrogated. If the person in custody is so badly injured that they cannot signal understanding and give clear conscious consent, then both Miranda and interrogation will be delayed until they can.
posted by nicwolff at 7:21 PM on April 19, 2013


Plant a tree?

I plant two trees in the morning.
I plant two trees at night.
I plant two trees in the afternoon.
It makes me feel all right.
I plant two trees in time of peace
and two in time of war.
I plant two trees before I plant two trees
and then I plant two more.
posted by murphy slaw at 7:23 PM on April 19, 2013 [23 favorites]


Yes, those very reliable sources.

Fair point.
posted by whoaali at 7:23 PM on April 19, 2013


This is probably not a popular opinion, but I hope that this young man is treated with compassion until we actually understand what happened from facts.

(This comment is not defending the acts at the marathon).
posted by jjray 1 minute ago [+]


Agree. Mostly just because the misinformation has been nuts here.
posted by sweetkid at 7:24 PM on April 19, 2013 [4 favorites]


notyou: "This is the kind of case that prosecutors with political ambitions like because they boost their profiles and win them elections."

Or federal judicial appointments.
posted by Dr. Zira at 7:24 PM on April 19, 2013


MSNBC reporting that the administration will utilize public safety exception. No Mirandizing immediately. Interrogation for 48 hours? Then Miranda.
posted by zerobyproxy at 7:24 PM on April 19, 2013


Carmen Ortiz got all kinds of internet heat for the Aaron Swartz thing, and rightfully so, but she is also the US attorney who just got smacked down by a federal judge for attempting to seize a motel under drug forfeiture laws. She's pretty much the textbook case for federal government overreach at the moment, and it's a tragedy that she'll have a chance to taint this case.
posted by Banky_Edwards at 7:24 PM on April 19, 2013 [28 favorites]


Hopefully this link works for the less optimistic photo.
posted by OHSnap at 7:25 PM on April 19, 2013


(President's statement over) Yeah, I figured that photo was of the older brother, but I clicked away pretty fast (I can't take that amount of photographic gore).

jamesonandwater, that description and explanation is fascinating, thanks for posting.
posted by joseph conrad is fully awesome at 7:25 PM on April 19, 2013


This is probably not a popular opinion, but I hope that this young man is treated with compassion until we actually understand what happened from facts.

Sorry, but he doesn't deserve compassion. He deserves to have his rights protected, full stop.
posted by BobbyVan at 7:25 PM on April 19, 2013 [3 favorites]


Hopefully this link works for the less optimistic photo.

It does but just for the record that doesn't look less optimistic to me.
posted by DarlingBri at 7:27 PM on April 19, 2013


The GOT HIM pic.
posted by nickyskye at 7:27 PM on April 19, 2013


Just want to say thanks to you all and the mods. Happy for Boston to have this be over.
posted by wallabear at 7:27 PM on April 19, 2013 [1 favorite]


I said it before, but I don't believe compassion can be wasted.
posted by sweetkid at 7:27 PM on April 19, 2013 [24 favorites]


Yeah, Carmen Ortiz getting this case is horrible. She's shown repeatedly that she doesn't have the ability to handle this stuff and is likely to screw it up.
posted by mediareport at 7:27 PM on April 19, 2013 [3 favorites]


Two of my best friends are in law enforcement, one of them in the Boston field office of the FBI – he's been home for about 6 hours since Monday morning. (The other has posted to Facebook a cop's tribute: the shoulder patches of the FBI, MA State Police, MBTA Police, and MIT Police.) I hope that Boston has a brief well-deserved city-wide celebration of relief, then quiets down so that most of its tired cops can get some sleep.
posted by nicwolff at 7:28 PM on April 19, 2013


In addition to treating his injuries, I hope he's kept secure, so we get a full trial.
posted by evidenceofabsence at 7:28 PM on April 19, 2013


Compassion? Sure.

Nothing but compassion? That's a different question.
posted by benito.strauss at 7:28 PM on April 19, 2013 [2 favorites]


what do you mean?
Because whatever the reason was, neither of these men saw themselves as working evil. They quite possibly saw the bombing as being in service towards some greater, noble goal, something that was worth killing for. And that killing is always easier when it targets people outside our families or communities in favor of protecting the people we know.

Obviously that's not the whole story - children and spouses are frequently murdered - but the core willingness to kill to defend something precious to the killer is always necessary.

Anyway, this is just something that seems true to me. Perhaps it's not, or perhaps it's trivial. It's a just a commonality that I see. If you've got anything that you would kill for, there's an aspect of what they did that you understand.
posted by kavasa at 7:29 PM on April 19, 2013 [5 favorites]


Compassion isn't something that's earned.
posted by makeitso at 7:29 PM on April 19, 2013 [16 favorites]


Wondering when was the last time law enforcement encountered someone named "Tamerlan." #ohyepamperedjadesofasia
posted by octobersurprise at 7:30 PM on April 19, 2013 [3 favorites]


So the US doesn't do rehab?

Ha ha. Funny. This kid who had a great prep school education, seemingly had a great life, happy, well-liked, and then bombed the Boston Marathon and assassinated a police officer and tried to kill others?

Not really a candidate for rehabilitation, no.
posted by Unified Theory at 7:30 PM on April 19, 2013 [2 favorites]


MSNBC reporting that the administration will utilize public safety exception. No Mirandizing immediately. Interrogation for 48 hours? Then Miranda.

That kind of makes me feel like we are all Lindsey Graham tonight.
posted by theredpen at 7:30 PM on April 19, 2013


Sorry, but he doesn't deserve compassion. He deserves to have his rights protected, full stop.

He deserves compassion, while still answering for his crimes. He was young man who had such potential, who could have literally done anything, but instead choose to kill innocents. That's loss of future and a life.

To be clear, I'm not putting that loss above those who have been killed and injured by this man's actions. But I do mourn the the circumstances that convinced this boy that setting off bombs was good idea.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 7:30 PM on April 19, 2013 [30 favorites]


Because whatever the reason was, neither of these men saw themselves as working evil.

Citation needed. We have no idea what their state of mind was at this point.
posted by humanfont at 7:31 PM on April 19, 2013 [4 favorites]


It does but just for the record that doesn't look less optimistic to me.

Well, he appears to be in a neck brace, and possibly intubated or on a ventilator bag. I know they're saying he's in serious condition, but I want his injuries to be fully recoverable so he can be questioned.
posted by OHSnap at 7:31 PM on April 19, 2013


They quite possibly saw the bombing as being in service towards some greater, noble goal, something that was worth killing for.

How can you possibly say that? It's just ridiculous guessing. We have ZERO idea what was going through these guys' heads.
posted by incessant at 7:31 PM on April 19, 2013 [3 favorites]


The GOT HIM pic.

Jesus. He looks like eight.
posted by ChurchHatesTucker at 7:31 PM on April 19, 2013


Just an additional warning: there is a very, very gory photo at the top of that guy's twitter account (the one that says "Burn in hell", which I unfortunately clicked on.)

I...had been doing so good all week about avoiding graphic images as much as I could and practicing self care, but for some reason I felt compelled to click through to the feed, too, and...I started at it in horror for ten full seconds and now I need to go drown myself in alcohol.

Jesus, that was a person. He was 26.

Seriously, seriously don't look at that.
posted by Phire at 7:32 PM on April 19, 2013 [8 favorites]


The "less optimistic" photo is actually optimistic, as that's just an O2 mask, and not a trach or intubation. I had one like that on me when I was a kid on my way to the hospital for an asthma attack.

This was in DC, I was 12, and with the Boyscouts. The ambulance driver was an african-american woman who drove up out of her seat, hanging onto the wheel, shouting all the while... "Outta my way! This is an ambulance! Can't you read? AM. BU. LANCE. Stupid mother... kissers, sorry, scout. Oh, these fuckers aren't going to clear the intersection! Can you beee-leeeve?"
posted by Slap*Happy at 7:32 PM on April 19, 2013 [61 favorites]


In a day of WTFs, I can honestly say that the weirdest thing to me is that he went back to school after bombing people and went to a party. That is.....insane.

Why should it be insane? It’s consistent with a reading of the kid as dominated/guilted/manipulated by his older brother, as an effort to relieve himself of the strain of knowing what he did, wanting a reminder of the normalcy that was open to him (and probably not his maladjusted, ideologically poisoned brother).

I have a feeling when it all comes out, the only way to understand this will be as tragedy.
posted by nelljie at 7:33 PM on April 19, 2013 [2 favorites]


I too am pretty sure that is an ER thoracotomy on the older brother. It is the right size and the right location and looks like there has been betadine splashed around it. A last ditch effort that usually fails, but it shows they didn't just let him die.
posted by TedW at 7:33 PM on April 19, 2013 [2 favorites]


Just for the record, I wasn't expressing disbelief that two good-looking people would do something like this. I was actually making a more nuanced point than that, or at least I had a more nuanced point in mind. I have a degree in psychology; I get the whole halo effect thing, and I was actually thinking about exactly that. People who are good-looking often (and sometimes unfairly) get farther in life than those who aren't. These guys had every advantage in that respect: They were both good-looking, physically fit, intelligent. And yet they still embarked on this path, rather than doing something else with their lives.

There are probably a lot of factors other than appearance that play into why they decided to do this, but their appearance is part of what made me wonder how they got there—and yes, to me, made their choices all the more tragic, because people are so willing to lay out a red carpet for and give the benefit of the doubt to those who look and act the right way (see also: Dzhokhar's college friends assuming that it couldn't possibly be him in the photos). They took advantage of that—but to evil ends.

Believe me, I am not saying "Oh, how surprising that good-looking people are terrorists!" Nor am I suggesting that only ugly people commit acts of terrorism—far from it! But appearance is at the core of this entire affair. Appearance is what we've been talking about all damn day!—what the suspects look like, who they might be, and how that played into whether they were able to hide their plans, hide in a crowd, etc. It is entirely relevant.
posted by limeonaire at 7:34 PM on April 19, 2013 [7 favorites]


It’s consistent with a reading of the kid as dominated/guilted/manipulated by his older brother

When you assume you make an ass out of u and actually just u.
posted by incessant at 7:34 PM on April 19, 2013 [2 favorites]


Because whatever the reason was, neither of these men saw themselves as working evil.

Yeah I have no idea how you could possible know this. Do you really think no one acts with evil intent? That they are all just misguided souls stumbling towards their personal truth? Because they aren't. I mean I don't know what the bombers motives were, but I'm definitely leaving something in the realm of "working evil" on the table as a possibility.
posted by whoaali at 7:36 PM on April 19, 2013 [1 favorite]


Whats with his face and right shoulder ? Is that from being run over, or burns from the IED he is reported to have used ?
posted by Pogo_Fuzzybutt at 7:36 PM on April 19, 2013


What jamesonwater said -- the skin around the big incision looks to be covered in iodine/betadine for surgical prep.
posted by Pantengliopoli at 7:37 PM on April 19, 2013


He's a US citizen, so I sure hope that the answer to that is no.

He is? I was under the impression he was an alien with legal residency.
posted by acb at 7:37 PM on April 19, 2013


Is that from being run over, or burns from the IED he is reported to have used ?

From what I read it was from his own bomb. You can also see several bullet entry wounds, one just under the ribs, one on the arm.
posted by The 10th Regiment of Foot at 7:38 PM on April 19, 2013


He is? I was under the impression he was an alien with legal residency.

Naturalized just over a year ago.
posted by The 10th Regiment of Foot at 7:38 PM on April 19, 2013


But I do mourn the the circumstances that convinced this boy that setting off bombs was good idea.

Ugh. "This boy" is an adult, and "mourning the circumstances that convinced" him robs him of moral agency.

I doubt people would be falling all over themselves to be "compassionate" had he and his brother devised a "grand rape plan" as opposed to a "grand murder plan."
posted by BobbyVan at 7:39 PM on April 19, 2013 [9 favorites]


From the NYT, 3/25/2011, the full text of the unsigned internal FBI memo in which Obama's Justice Department claimed new exceptions to citizens' Miranda rights:

3. There may be exceptional cases in which, although all relevant public safety questions have been asked, agents nonetheless conclude that continued unwarned interrogation is necessary to collect valuable and timely intelligence not related to any immediate threat, and that the government's interest in obtaining this intelligence outweighs the disadvantages of proceeding with unwarned interrogation.
posted by mediareport at 7:39 PM on April 19, 2013


He's a citizen, it's come up many times in the thread.
posted by sweetkid at 7:39 PM on April 19, 2013


To me, his going back to college for a day is the strangest and most human moment in this story. It seems like he had one last day lived as if he hadn't done the deed, and just lived out his normal life. But then he went back to his brother, and they killed again.
posted by feste at 7:39 PM on April 19, 2013 [13 favorites]


He deserves to have his rights protected, full stop.

In a sense, what he deserves is really beside the point. We owe it to ourselves as a nation to make a clear and public demonstration of our faith in a nation of laws that is vastly stronger than the people who seek to attack it.
posted by Horace Rumpole at 7:39 PM on April 19, 2013 [40 favorites]


Naturalized just over a year ago.

Sept 11, 2012, yes? So 6 months ago.
posted by Justinian at 7:40 PM on April 19, 2013


Feels so nice to have America back to normal. Now BPD can go bust heads at an Occupy camp, and I can go back to calling them fascists.
posted by Trochanter at 7:40 PM on April 19, 2013 [7 favorites]


I doubt people would be falling all over themselves to be "compassionate" had he and his brother devised a "grand rape plan" as opposed to a "grand murder plan."

I have compassion for the Steubenville rapists, too. Compassion doesn't mean "let them go free" or "cable TV and ice cream every day."
posted by sweetkid at 7:41 PM on April 19, 2013 [11 favorites]


I doubt people would be falling all over themselves to be "compassionate" had he and his brother devised a "grand rape plan" as opposed to a "grand murder plan."

That's a worthless statement, impossible to prove or disprove, but I can at least tell you I disagree. There are plenty of folks who can both condemn acts of violence and seek to understand how young people get drawn into violent cultures.
posted by mediareport at 7:41 PM on April 19, 2013 [21 favorites]


Curious about the purple lividity in the face and the right shoulder, which suggests (and no I aint no damned doctor or forensics expert) if the body was kept in a certain position, after the heart stopped, that would cause the blood to pool in those areas in that way.


You've gotta wonder what took place between the police getting their hands on him and his body getting to the hospital. That lividity (and please any expert jump in here) would be caused by the body being face down with the head and the shoulder hanging towards the floor?
posted by Skygazer at 7:42 PM on April 19, 2013 [1 favorite]


It’s consistent with a reading of the kid as dominated/guilted/manipulated by his older brother

When you assume you make an ass out of u and actually just u.


I may be an ass, but I didn't assume anything. I said there was a possibility the guy is not 'insane', and described an alternative (which, yeah, is my gut interpretation).
posted by nelljie at 7:42 PM on April 19, 2013 [2 favorites]


Sorry, you're right Justinian, I thought it was 2011.
posted by The 10th Regiment of Foot at 7:42 PM on April 19, 2013


Whats with his face and right shoulder ? Is that from being run over, or burns from the IED he is reported to have used ?

They look like burns to me. It looks like his shirt protected part of his chest leaving a nice straight border at the left lower neck.
posted by TedW at 7:42 PM on April 19, 2013 [1 favorite]


I hope this guy survives. And I hope they put good doctors there to handle it. A couple of years ago I almost lost my leg/died (7 days if IV antibiotics were required) because these guys at Mt. Auburn repeatedly and condescendingly ignored the abscess in my leg "it's a baker's cyst!"
posted by mitten of doom at 7:43 PM on April 19, 2013 [1 favorite]


I may be a ciold-hearted bitch, but I don't get the "poor misguided kid led astray by his older brother" theory.

He is 19. When I was 19, I had lived away from home for 2 years. I had a job, I paid bills, I stood up on trains to let old people have a seat, and I sure as hell wouldn't have innocently abandoned a backpack at a marathon at someone else's request, not knowing or understanding what was inside it.

We (you Americans and us Aussies) have 19 year olds in Afghanistan. I'm pretty sure they know what they're doing, particularly considering the PTSD and suicide rates of those serving.

He isn't a kid. He's an adult. He may be suffering a mental illness, but he's still an adult. He isn't a four year old who's been offered a bribe to put a whoopie cushion on his elderly great-aunts chair.

And to further assure you that I am a cold-hearted bitch, as a mother who can't forget the photo of the 8 year old boy they killed, I hope the staff at the hospital are holding back on the painkillers.
posted by malibustacey9999 at 7:44 PM on April 19, 2013 [8 favorites]


I doubt people would be falling all over themselves to be "compassionate" had he and his brother devised a "grand rape plan" as opposed to a "grand murder plan."

You know this "You wouldn't be saying this if the situation were different" sort of gotcha stuff is really annoying. People have different reactions to the sorts of things that have unfolded this week. Taunting the people who are personally stating compassion with obnoxious rapey counterfactuals doesn't really forward the conversation much.
posted by jessamyn at 7:45 PM on April 19, 2013 [61 favorites]


So the US doesn't do rehab? Once radicalised, always radicalised?

It will be interesting to compare how Dzhokhar Tsarnaev's case is handled to that of Anders Breivik in Norway. Breivik killed 77 and injured 319 people.

An excellent previous post on Breivik: In Sentencing Criminals, Is Norway Too Soft? Or Are We Too Harsh?
posted by homunculus at 7:45 PM on April 19, 2013 [4 favorites]


I'm finding the parade of friends, teammates, and neighbors saying they can't believe Dzhokhar would do this so disconcerting. It's such a different narrative than Newtown, Aurora, etc. (yes, mass shooting != bombing...but still).
posted by murfed13 at 7:48 PM on April 19, 2013


We (you Americans and us Aussies) have 19 year olds in Afghanistan. I'm pretty sure they know what they're doing, particularly considering the PTSD and suicide rates of those serving.

I'm sorry, but I don't think this proves what you think it proves.
posted by mollweide at 7:48 PM on April 19, 2013 [31 favorites]


It will be interesting to compare how Dzhokhar Tsarnaev's case is handled to that of Anders Breivik in Norway. Breivik killed 77 and injured 319 people.

It is exceedingly unlikely that Breivik will ever be released.
posted by benbenson at 7:48 PM on April 19, 2013 [1 favorite]


You know this "You wouldn't be saying this if the situation were different" sort of gotcha stuff is really annoying.

Also annoying is the Compassion-a-Thon that some Mefites are having for these cold-blooded killers ...
posted by Unified Theory at 7:49 PM on April 19, 2013 [3 favorites]



And to further assure you that I am a cold-hearted bitch, as a mother who can't forget the photo of the 8 year old boy they killed, I hope the staff at the hospital are holding back on the painkillers.


I don't like using words like "bitch," and people can think what they want, but the thing is that the suspect not getting painkillers doesn't do anything for the 8 year old kid who died. Also as a doctor's kid I'm really grateful that health care workers don't act that way.
posted by sweetkid at 7:49 PM on April 19, 2013 [55 favorites]


I'm also a doctor's kid, and I have reason to believe that they do -- at least some of them.
posted by Countess Elena at 7:50 PM on April 19, 2013


I'm not sure if this was posted anywhere up thread, but it was the first I'd heard of it: FBI talked to older Boston suspect
posted by whoaali at 7:51 PM on April 19, 2013


In all seriousness: this has been an experience, guys.

The Boston Marathon bombing upset me more that 9/11, for some reason. The horrific pointlessness, the deaths, the terrible injuries of the survivors. I've worried and fretted over this, so I don't blame the Redditors for their enthusiasm. Why? Why? Why? kept echoing in my head, interrupting my sleep, distracting me at work. I still don't have any answers, but now there is hope.

I would like to offer thanks and praise to all the contributors that prayed for this sad man's life. Some of you, like me, were driven for a desire for understanding. Others, just hoped for life for life's sake. Bless you all.

I have never been prouder of this community than I am right now.
posted by SPrintF at 7:52 PM on April 19, 2013 [8 favorites]


Crowds gathering near finish line of Boston Marathon after capture of bombing suspect http://t.co/w3MN850aPvBuzzFeed News
posted by ob1quixote at 7:53 PM on April 19, 2013 [2 favorites]


He is 19. When I was 19, I had lived away from home for 2 years. I had a job, I paid bills

And some people are easily influenced, regardless of age etc. When I was 19, I was immature and dependent (hell, I'm 27 and still rely on my family for some financial support as I'm finally getting my degree).

My take on the theory is that the older brother was the mastermind who though up and orchestrated the whole thing, and the younger brother was an accomplice. It doesn't make him any less guilty. But take the relationship, and how young and innocent his pictures look, and how his parents talk about him so reverently (but not the older brother), and it gives something for people to be compassionate about. It's much easier to think that the real bad guy is dead and the other bad guy isn't so bad, and won't be a bad guy now that the real bad guy is gone.
posted by DoubleLune at 7:54 PM on April 19, 2013 [2 favorites]


Whether or not he is a citizen, naturalized or otherwise; or a resident alien, he is entitled to all the protections of the constitution, regardless of what the Justice Department or anyone else might say (note- the "enemy combatant" designation has never really been tested in a court of law, and has very little legal standing).

BobbyVan, are you trying to say that I would think if he had some sort of "rape plan", he should be denied due process? Because you would be extremely wrong there.
posted by TheWhiteSkull at 7:55 PM on April 19, 2013 [7 favorites]


Crowds gathering near finish line of Boston Marathon after capture of bombing suspect

And throughout New England, the apple trees are finally in bloom. It's been a cold, harsh spring. Here's hoping for a mild summer.
posted by Slap*Happy at 7:56 PM on April 19, 2013 [4 favorites]


Surely Jesus would withhold the painkillers.
posted by Camofrog at 7:56 PM on April 19, 2013 [24 favorites]


Maybe the younger more socially adept brother manipulated his older more brutish brother into the scheme. He threw his brother under a car to get away. It's as likely as the theories of his innocence.
posted by humanfont at 7:57 PM on April 19, 2013 [3 favorites]


He isn't a kid. He's an adult.

Sure, legally he's adult and no matter his age, he alone is responsible for his actions.

But speaking as 41 year old guy, nineteen year olds are just kids. I don't mean that disparagingly, but with the recognition that all nineteen year olds have plenty of growing up to do and literally have a vast number of directions they can go in, especially if they're in the position that Dzhokar Tsarnaev was in. Scholarships, popularity, handsome, caring family. But in the end all those gifts, things that some people spend their life wanting and never getting, didn't mean that much.

He made a choice to put bombs in a crowd and kill people. The fucker deserves the full weight of the law, but it's a terrible shame he made the choice that he did.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 7:57 PM on April 19, 2013 [31 favorites]


XQUZYPHYR: "I don't think this guy is going to be talked into surrendering. I think law enforcement should look into stunning or sedating him somehow. Evacuate the area, use something long range and if he's got a deadman switch, oh well.

I honestly think it would scare the shit out of him if the Feds roll up with a submarine.
"

Meow, what is so damn funny?
posted by symbioid at 7:57 PM on April 19, 2013


There is apparently video of both of them walking away from the scene of the explosions when the bombs went off and neither really reacts much.

[snip]

No I heard it discussed on tv. I can't remember whether it was MSNBC or CNN, probably MSNBC.


Perhaps you were thinking of this photo, whoaali?
posted by wensink at 7:58 PM on April 19, 2013


Tomorrow is Earth Day, its the weekend after a stressful week and the date is 4/20. Y'all should know exactly what to do.

Denver 4/20 Pot Holiday Bringing Tight Security In Light Of Boston Marathon Attacks
posted by homunculus at 7:59 PM on April 19, 2013


Sad Kim Jong Un.
posted by nickyskye at 8:00 PM on April 19, 2013 [6 favorites]


Surely Jesus would withhold the painkillers.

Please tell me that was meant as sarcasm.
posted by UbuRoivas at 8:00 PM on April 19, 2013 [3 favorites]


I won't feel bad for feeling bad for this kid. And while he is legally an adult, I think back to when I was 19, and I sure as shit wasn't making adult decisions then. YMMV. He did something unspeakably horrible, yes, but, he is still a human being. Maybe they were psychopaths, but we don't know yet why this happened. Right now, this was a senseless act of violence, and I want to know why this happened. I want to know the motive that led to a friend of mine holing up in his basement two houses away in Watertown while this shit went down. I cannot rationalize this, but I also grew up in a peaceful suburb, and not, you know, a wartorn Soviet nation. If I believed that people were just born evil, I don't think I could survive in this world. Again, YMMV, but compassion is helping me cope with this.
posted by Ruki at 8:01 PM on April 19, 2013 [20 favorites]


I took it as sarcasm.
posted by sweetkid at 8:01 PM on April 19, 2013


We .... have 19 year olds in Afghanistan. I'm pretty sure they know what they're doing,

That doesn't sound right. I've heard quite a few returning vets who say they had no idea what they were going in to. 'Cause that's the thing with a lot of 19 year olds — they haven't thought about many of the things they believe, and they can be very gung-ho. (I'm not on the compassion train, and I think almost everyone believes he will deserve the punishment he will get, but we can still think about the route he took to these actions.)
posted by benito.strauss at 8:02 PM on April 19, 2013 [7 favorites]


Just because we want justice doesn't mean we have to take pleasure in it. This man and his brother wasted the gifts life gave them, throwing them away in a truly heinous manner.

I don't feel bloodthirsty tonight. Just sad that they put things in motion that can never be put to rights this side of eternity. The actions they took have consequences.

I have no joy in that, but that's the way it MUST be.
posted by St. Alia of the Bunnies at 8:03 PM on April 19, 2013 [15 favorites]




I have people in my Facebook feed who are outraged he's getting read his Miranda rights.

I think that people expressing the desire for vengeance at any cost is really, really ironic given his position as a radicalized Chechen ex-pat.
posted by codacorolla at 8:05 PM on April 19, 2013 [3 favorites]


It's as likely as the theories of his innocence.

If someone's claiming the guy is actually innocent I must have missed it.
posted by benito.strauss at 8:05 PM on April 19, 2013


We .... have 19 year olds in Afghanistan. I'm pretty sure they know what they're doing,

"God help me; I was only 19"
posted by UbuRoivas at 8:06 PM on April 19, 2013 [8 favorites]


"Identifying with another person is an essential process for human beings."

"Compassion seems to be characteristic of democratic societies."

"Compassion may have the ability to induce feelings of kindness and forgiveness, which could give compassion to have the ability to stop situations that occasionally lead to violence."

Wikipedia on "compassion".

In light of what Ruki said (something I understand and just get), this seems relevant for those not understanding where s/he is coming from...
posted by youandiandaflame at 8:06 PM on April 19, 2013 [9 favorites]




BobbyVan, are you trying to say that I would think if he had some sort of "rape plan", he should be denied due process? Because you would be extremely wrong there.

I'm not saying that, TheWhiteSkull. (And I've been around long enough to know that the longer you use "rape" to make your argument, the worse that discussion will go.)

What I am saying is that, on a moral level, it's important to recognize that these killers made a choice to commit evil. And you can't deal with them as individuals if you strip away the choices they made. And I also think that just as a healthy society loves the good, a healthy society also needs to hate the evil. So I think it's OK, even healthy, to hate this person.

That doesn't mean that we allow our moral feelings to prevail over the rule of law, or suspend our rational faculties that might allow us to understand why he did what he did. But to feel compassion for him - to indulge in sympathetic consciousness of [his] distress together with a desire to alleviate it - I find offensive.
posted by BobbyVan at 8:09 PM on April 19, 2013 [3 favorites]


given his position as a radicalized Chechen ex-pat

I really don't think there's anything to back this up.
posted by DoubleLune at 8:09 PM on April 19, 2013 [11 favorites]


If I believed that people were just born evil, I don't think I could survive in this world. Again, YMMV, but compassion is helping me cope with this.

I think placing evil solely within the conscious will of any individual underestimates everything we've tried to learn about people.
posted by nelljie at 8:09 PM on April 19, 2013 [4 favorites]


If I stopped him while he was walking down Boylston with his backpack, and showed him a video of the week's events--the horror, the deaths, the injuries, his brother's end, and 16 hours of him cowering in a boat bleeding out--would he make the same decision?

I wish I could know the answer to that.
posted by murfed13 at 8:09 PM on April 19, 2013 [18 favorites]


Please tell me that was meant as sarcasm.

Of course.
posted by Camofrog at 8:09 PM on April 19, 2013


Boat.
posted by Catch at 8:10 PM on April 19, 2013



BobbyVan: "I doubt people would be falling all over themselves to be "compassionate" had he and his brother devised a "grand rape plan" as opposed to a "grand murder plan.""

Compassion is always the right choice.

Doesn't mean you just let shit go or anything, jesus.
posted by Red Loop at 8:11 PM on April 19, 2013 [26 favorites]


What I am saying is that, on a moral level, it's important to recognize that these killers made a choice to commit evil.

I've had a lot of opportunities to be around, interview, and sometimes get drunk with, people who 'committed evil'. Child murderers, arsonists, bank robbers, doctors who performed unethical experiments, abusive parents.

I have never yet encountered one who couldn't -- and didn't -- justify their actions, in their own terms.
posted by unSane at 8:12 PM on April 19, 2013 [8 favorites]


(in other words, they didn't consider their actions evil, at least at the time. Not one, ever.)
posted by unSane at 8:13 PM on April 19, 2013 [3 favorites]




I hope the staff at the hospital are holding back on the painkillers.

Luckily, the staff has better sense and ethics than that, one would assume.

Kid hasn't been tried and found guilty yet.
posted by nacho fries at 8:14 PM on April 19, 2013 [13 favorites]


Ha! Via Reddit, little kid high-fiving passing SWAT guy.

I hate the quote from Kerry running on that crawl re: "direct confrontation with evil," but I love it plopped incongruously into the context of that picture.

"...and that toddler grew up to be Emperor Palpatine."
posted by Sys Rq at 8:15 PM on April 19, 2013 [8 favorites]


I hope the staff at the hospital are holding back on the painkillers.

If they are, they should no longer be working in a hospital.
posted by Pantengliopoli at 8:15 PM on April 19, 2013 [69 favorites]


Kid hasn't been tried and found guilty yet.

Even assuming he got the speediest trial ever and was declared guilty, he still deserves painkillers and the best medical treatment we can give him. He's a fucking human being.
posted by tonycpsu at 8:16 PM on April 19, 2013 [45 favorites]


Just heard on CNN: "You are innocent until presumed guilty"
posted by unSane at 8:16 PM on April 19, 2013 [17 favorites]


This whole Miranda kerfuffle is moot if the kid says, "I'm going to remain silent, and I want to speak to an attorney." No?
posted by ob1quixote at 8:16 PM on April 19, 2013 [1 favorite]


From that video: "This is America, WE STILL FOLLOW TRAFFIC LAWS!"

Awesome.
posted by youandiandaflame at 8:17 PM on April 19, 2013 [1 favorite]




From that video: "This is America, WE STILL FOLLOW TRAFFIC LAWS!"

Uh, this is Boston and no you don't
posted by sweetkid at 8:18 PM on April 19, 2013 [37 favorites]


Just heard on CNN: "You are innocent until presumed guilty"

Entering the "dry drunk" phase of their coverage.

Stay up until 3am for Wolf Blitzer wearing a lampshade and singing showtunes.
posted by tonycpsu at 8:18 PM on April 19, 2013 [11 favorites]


made a choice to commit evil

I was going to point out that this was a problematic way to think about it, but unSane got there first.

Will Self's comments on the killers of James Bulger come to mind here - at about a minute into this video. "What a frightening thought that they might not have been evil at all?"
posted by knapah at 8:19 PM on April 19, 2013


Even assuming he got the speediest trial ever and was declared guilty, he still deserves painkillers and the best medical treatment we can give him. He's a fucking human being.

And this is America, where we give exactly that regardless of who you are or what you've done, however awful. One hopes, anyway.
posted by youandiandaflame at 8:19 PM on April 19, 2013 [3 favorites]




I was going to point out that this was a problematic way to think about it, but unSane got there first.

It's only problematic if you consider evil to be a subjective concept.
posted by BobbyVan at 8:20 PM on April 19, 2013


On to the next batshit clusterfuck then!




Seriously, compassion takes strength and has fuck all to do with justice for people who do terrible things. It's what makes us worthwhile.


Good policing today, it's important. And hats off as usual to emergency workers, y'all make me proud to be a human.
posted by Divine_Wino at 8:22 PM on April 19, 2013 [16 favorites]


Denying a hurt person painkillers when they're readily available is a form of torture.

That is all.
posted by Skygazer at 8:22 PM on April 19, 2013 [21 favorites]


It's only problematic if you consider evil to be a subjective concept.

No, that's not true. You can consider evil an objective quality, but unless other people accept your 'objective' definition, they can be committing evil while thinking they are doing the right thing.
posted by unSane at 8:23 PM on April 19, 2013 [1 favorite]


This whole Miranda kerfuffle is moot if the kid says, "I'm going to remain silent, and I want to speak to an attorney." No?

The whole point of Miranda is that not everyone knows their rights as a criminal suspect.
posted by DevilsAdvocate at 8:24 PM on April 19, 2013 [1 favorite]


And to further assure you that I am a cold-hearted bitch, as a mother who can't forget the photo of the 8 year old boy they killed, I hope the staff at the hospital are holding back on the painkillers.

I'm a mother, too, and I am grieving for the loss of that cute 8 year-old boy. I remember what my own boys were like at 8.

But...I am also grieving for that 19 year-old. My eldest is only just 21, so I remember him as a 19 year-old much more clearly than as an 8 year-old (and his little brother is just 17, so.) He made a series of horrible choices, yes, but at 19, you really aren't all that clued-in to The Way The World Really Is. You're still kind of an idealist, and it's still kind of a shock when you learn that the world actually sucks festering donkey balls.

This young man was once someone's cute 8 year-old. Somehow, somewhere, that adorable hope that we see in every 8 year-old was replaced with something sinister, and he made terrible decisions that caused death and pain. And now, even if he's only given life in prison, his life is OVER.

I am sad that a life that had such potential has gone so badly awry. I am sad that his mother, who surely had great hopes and dreams for her children, is seeing those dreams shattered, is dealing with the grief and maybe even guilt of both of her sons turning to violence and terrorism.

Maybe it's because my sons are so close to him in age. I don't know. Maybe it's the teacher in me, grieving that a young person has thrown his life away without really understanding the consequences of doing so. I don't know. But I hurt for everyone involved - the people who died, the people who were wounded, the elder brother who should have known better, and this 19 year-old kid who had the world at his feet. It sucks all around, and I don't know what else to do except feel great sorrow over the entire situation.
posted by MissySedai at 8:29 PM on April 19, 2013 [123 favorites]


This whole Miranda kerfuffle is moot if the kid says, "I'm going to remain silent, and I want to speak to an attorney." No?

The whole point of Miranda is that not everyone knows their rights as a criminal suspect.


That's really exactly the issue that angers me. All denying something Miranda really accomplishes is potentially derailing a prosecution and potentially forcing the courts to further erode our civil rights in order to save the case. Denying Miranda is just an assertion that the State is answerable to no one and doesn't need to follow anyone's rules. It's arrogant and destructive and it accomplishes nothing.

In all fairness there are people who don't know their rights, but I find it unlikely that sophisticated terrorists fall into that group.
posted by whoaali at 8:30 PM on April 19, 2013 [14 favorites]


"evil" is a word that creates so much more heat than light. I remember when Reagan referred to the USSR as "the evil empire" and was widely dismissed for introducing fuzzy religious terminology into the public sphere. It seems it's just part of he discourse now and I think that silent framing of our thought and potential public reaction is is a serious step backwards.
posted by Rumple at 8:31 PM on April 19, 2013 [14 favorites]


MissySedai, thank you, I've been trying to express why I'm feeling close to tears about the whole situation, and in no mood to celebrate this guy's capture, and you really put it all into words.
posted by peacheater at 8:32 PM on April 19, 2013 [4 favorites]


Is there any evidence as to how these two were supporting themselves and their studies?
posted by unSane at 8:32 PM on April 19, 2013


Didn't the younger one get scholarship money to go to UMass Dartmouth? And as he's a naturalized citizen, he'd be eligible for loans and such, I think. That's my quick guess.
posted by not_on_display at 8:34 PM on April 19, 2013


BobbyVan: “It's only problematic if you consider evil to be a subjective concept.”

I vehemently disagree. I am a Christian. Christianity teaches compassion for all, even the rankest sinners. Are you telling me that my faith considers evil to be a "subjective concept"?
posted by koeselitz at 8:35 PM on April 19, 2013 [2 favorites]


And throughout New England, the apple trees are finally in bloom. It's been a cold, harsh spring. Here's hoping for a mild summer.

I don't see any trees in bloom. And in my 23 years living in MA, I don't ever recall a mild summer. Nice sentiment though.
posted by WhitenoisE at 8:35 PM on April 19, 2013 [1 favorite]


More celebration videos
posted by mediated self at 8:36 PM on April 19, 2013


I think we would still have celebration videos if the kid had been killed only they would have made me sick instead of happy.
posted by sweetkid at 8:40 PM on April 19, 2013 [2 favorites]


Koeselitz, some mid-century versions of Christianity do consider evil a subjective concept. Not that that undermines your point.
posted by unSane at 8:42 PM on April 19, 2013


Forgiving is about letting go. It's not about doing a favor for the person you're forgiving, it's about resolving your own feelings.
posted by Joakim Ziegler at 8:44 PM on April 4

posted by HMSSM at 8:43 PM on April 19, 2013 [3 favorites]


WhitenoisE, trees are flowering just south/east of the MA border where I live. I've particularly admired them this week. Come to RI and look at our trees. You're absolutely right about the lack of mild summers, though. It's not the heat, it's the humidity and all.
posted by Ruki at 8:43 PM on April 19, 2013 [2 favorites]


Also, I have sixteen minutes to use up the rest of my favorites. I suppose I could stop refreshing this particular thread, but this is very cathartic here.
posted by Ruki at 8:45 PM on April 19, 2013


The greater Boston area is warmer than most of New England. In central/western MA, forsythias are about the only thing blooming yet.
posted by Camofrog at 8:46 PM on April 19, 2013 [1 favorite]


No, that's not true. You can consider evil an objective quality, but unless other people accept your 'objective' definition, they can be committing evil while thinking they are doing the right thing.
Look, you can argue on the margins about things like eating meat or cheating on one's taxes. But even a sincerely argued case for killing children at a marathon is going to be considered evil by me and the vast majority of human adults with the capacity for reason and moral sentiments. I believe such extreme moral negligence can amount to evil.

I vehemently disagree. I am a Christian. Christianity teaches compassion for all, even the rankest sinners. Are you telling me that my faith considers evil to be a "subjective concept"?
I think your argument is with unSane, not with me. We agree about the universality of good and evil (at least when it comes to the really important issues); we just disagree about the value of uncritical compassion.

Would love to continue this but it's gotten to be quite the derail and I need to go to bed. Haven't slept much the last couple of days. Nice to know that we got the guy.
posted by BobbyVan at 8:47 PM on April 19, 2013 [2 favorites]


These celebrations are premature as long as Zooey Deschanel is still at large.
posted by homunculus at 8:50 PM on April 19, 2013 [59 favorites]


I don't see any trees in bloom.

You mean, apart from the one in the linked video? (And in my yard, and in the orchards along my commute, and...)
posted by Slap*Happy at 8:50 PM on April 19, 2013


I am not concerned about whether he has painkillers.
posted by knoyers at 8:50 PM on April 19, 2013 [1 favorite]


Is there any evidence as to how these two were supporting themselves and their studies?
The younger suspect had a $2,500 scholarship from the City of Cambridge. He was attending a state school, UMass Dartmouth, where tuition without room and board for an in-state student is a bit less than $12k/year. He could have made up much of the rest with federal grants and loans.

The older brother attended three semesters of Bunker Hill Community College, which cost about the same.
posted by evidenceofabsence at 8:51 PM on April 19, 2013


On my way to work, I drive past pink and white flowering trees. Tonight, I learned that the pink trees are magnolias. Which is also the name of my street. I feel a little embarrassed that I didn't know that.
posted by Ruki at 8:52 PM on April 19, 2013


Crowds gathering near finish line of Boston Marathon after capture of bombing suspect

I can hear the occasional whooping from the same and it's so much infinitely better than the helicopters of the last few days.

(Whooping very quietly here so as not to wake the tot.)
posted by sonika at 8:54 PM on April 19, 2013 [3 favorites]


I think our system affords people like this suspect considerable compassion, in the form of an attorney, medical care, food, the opportunity to practice his religious faith in prison, the ability to read books, and sometimes even the opportunity to choose his final meal before execution.

Is that not enough compassion?
posted by Unified Theory at 8:57 PM on April 19, 2013 [3 favorites]


The younger suspect had a $2,500 scholarship from the City of Cambridge. He was attending a state school, UMass Dartmouth, where tuition without room and board for an in-state student is a bit less than $12k/year. He could have made up much of the rest with federal grants and loans.

Isn't Cambridge Rindge & Latin School quite a fancy, expensive, prestigious prep school? I would imagine its tuition would be pretty high.
posted by Unified Theory at 8:58 PM on April 19, 2013


Compassion could include painkillers, if needed. :)
posted by RussHy at 8:58 PM on April 19, 2013


"These celebrations are premature as long as Zooey Deschanel is still at large."

O.M.G.

Eliza Dushku, Watertown Native, Worries For Family, Friends In Massachusetts
posted by Room 641-A at 8:59 PM on April 19, 2013


BobbyVan, this entire situation makes me feel sad.

If this person is accorded due process, and found guilty, I think he should receive the harshest penalty allowed by law. I do think he probably did it, and was probably in his right mind when he did it; but ultimately, that's not my place to say.

That doesn't mean I don't feel sorry for him. Even if he is guilty, it would mean that at some point he turned down a wrong and terrible path. And that is tragic, regardless of the legal outcome.

Justice for the victims, but understanding (or at least, some attempt at understanding) for the perpetrator.


And you're the one who brought up rape.
posted by TheWhiteSkull at 9:00 PM on April 19, 2013 [9 favorites]


Isn't Cambridge Rindge & Latin School quite a fancy, expensive, prestigious prep school? I would imagine its tuition would be pretty high.

No. It's a public school.
posted by Miko at 9:01 PM on April 19, 2013 [9 favorites]


Oh yeah, also, denying painkillers is fucking torture.

Seriously.

People here should know better.
posted by TheWhiteSkull at 9:02 PM on April 19, 2013 [36 favorites]


According to that NYT article linked by seemoreglass, he wasn't doing at all well academically. The pressure of looming academic failure could have made him nihilistic about his future, and more susceptible his brother's promptings.
posted by feste at 9:02 PM on April 19, 2013 [1 favorite]


The whole point of Miranda is that not everyone knows their rights as a criminal suspect.

Dont Talk to Police
In praise of the Fifth Amendment right to not be a witness against yourself or “Why I am proud to admit that I will never talk to any police officer.”
SLYT | 48:40
posted by lampshade at 9:04 PM on April 19, 2013 [3 favorites]


Alternatively he wasn't doing well academically because he was too busy building bombs to study.
posted by humanfont at 9:05 PM on April 19, 2013


Good point.
posted by feste at 9:06 PM on April 19, 2013


I personally have a lot if compassion for this guy. Whatever choices he made, he ended up doing awful things and will face the consequences the rest of his life. He's still a person and a fellow traveller on the human journey.

However, while I hope individuals treat him humanely and with compassion, I do not believe it is the justice system's job to do so. He should have a fair trial and receive an appropriate sentence under the law. That's not a lack of compassion, that's natural consequences.

I'm honestly not interested in his motives. I'm grateful he's caught and alive and hope he receives excellent medical care and a fair trial. Why he did what he did is something I'll never understand.
posted by sonika at 9:09 PM on April 19, 2013 [8 favorites]


Toronto aunt of Boston bombing suspects says nephews innocent.

Why Chechens Think The Tsarnaev Brothers Were Framed: Even paranoids have real enemies. Especially in Russia.
posted by homunculus at 9:10 PM on April 19, 2013 [4 favorites]


(Oh, caveat: I am 100% against the death penalty. Forgot for a sec that it's an option as it's a federal case. So I amend my hopes to "fair trial appropriate sentence that is not death.")
posted by sonika at 9:12 PM on April 19, 2013 [2 favorites]


BobbyVan: “We agree about the universality of good and evil (at least when it comes to the really important issues); we just disagree about the value of uncritical compassion.”

That sounds like backtracking to me. Did you really think anyone would argue in favor of the value of uncritical compassion? That modifier changes it a bit, doesn't it?

In my mind, the most compassionate thing for a criminal is just punishment. Doing wrong harms the soul of the person who does wrong. Sometimes, in very rare cases, it does so much harm that the most compassionate thing is to end the person's suffering rather than consign them to a life in which no hope of rehabilitation is possible. But I also don't deny that justice demands that the victims – those killed, those hurt, and all those millions who suffered in any way because of this – be considered in the verdict.

Maybe we can compromise and say that a critical form of compassion is called for.
posted by koeselitz at 9:13 PM on April 19, 2013 [10 favorites]


Oh, and Eliza, if you're listening, everything is five by five now.


Whatever that means.
posted by TheWhiteSkull at 9:16 PM on April 19, 2013 [9 favorites]


What a week. What a day.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 9:16 PM on April 19, 2013 [3 favorites]


Has there been any update from MGH?
posted by mudpuppie at 9:16 PM on April 19, 2013 [1 favorite]


Five by five means you're reading someone loud and clear.
posted by Justinian at 9:19 PM on April 19, 2013


The comments about "evil" in relation to these incidents are not helpful and merely obfuscate the human condition and real world situation. The experiences of Bostonians over the past two days are a part of everyday life at present in Syria, Iraq, parts of Afghanistan and Yemen. They are an almost daily occurrence. On the same day as the marathon, over 50 people were killed by car bombs in Iraq and over 80 in the past week. The perpetrators of these acts are not insane, if anything the world is insane, and they're simply expressing their frustration with that world.

I don't want to diminish the appalling actions of these men/boys. However, it is sometimes enlightening to broaden ones view beyond the limit of ones perceived personal safety. Like it or not, many people perceive the United States as a facilitator and perpetrator of similar acts of violence abroad. Unfortunately, some of these people are not educated or intelligent enough to understand that violent reaction is not a solution.

I do not want to suggest this makes it any less depressing. However, one will not contribute to understanding these actions by dismissing them as evil.
posted by bigZLiLk at 9:20 PM on April 19, 2013 [18 favorites]


"Good policing today, it's important."

Safe to say, it was a bad day to leave your packages unattended. Or to Craigslist your stuff and leave it out in front of your house for pickup. Or to be a box left under an overpass. Or to be a discarded piece of pipe. Things were being given the controlled explosion treatment left and right, it seemed.

I remember hearing one radio report about an officer reporting a large box left out the sidewalk in front of a house, covered with clothes. Fortunately, the person was home and let them know it was, in fact, clothes left out for free, so they didn't have to call out the bomb squad.

The police made a special point of noting the address, so they wouldn't have to do the same thing again later on that day.
posted by markkraft at 9:20 PM on April 19, 2013 [2 favorites]


Thank you everyone. This thread has been great. I hope world settles down a little so that Barack and the mods can get some rest.
posted by ThatCanadianGirl at 9:21 PM on April 19, 2013 [1 favorite]


Surely Jesus would withhold the painkillers.

Because the Advil would keep falling through the holes in his hands.
posted by srboisvert at 9:23 PM on April 19, 2013 [25 favorites]


I have to admit I really don't understand the decision behind not reading Miranda rights. The public-safety exception should only exist to salvage a case if the government essentially makes a mistake and asks questions without first providing the Miranda warning in certain circumstances. It doesn't make any sense to allow the same exception for a conscious, premeditated decision not to Mirandize the suspect. It seems like there is only downside for the government's case if a court disagrees with this strategy.
posted by stopgap at 9:24 PM on April 19, 2013 [2 favorites]


In the event that this case is certified as a death case, that might be a good reason not to request a venue change. There's never been a federal execution in a Mass case. Last state execution was in 1947. He might not want to risk ending up in, say, Texas.
posted by murfed13 at 9:26 PM on April 19, 2013


I'd say the public safety angle is pretty solid in a case where there were so many explosive devices all over the place.
posted by Trochanter at 9:27 PM on April 19, 2013


"many people perceive the United States as a facilitator and perpetrator of similar acts of violence abroad. Unfortunately, some of these people are not educated or intelligent enough to understand that violent reaction is not a solution."

Except, of course, that most terrorists tend to be well educated, and come from middle class backgrounds.
posted by markkraft at 9:28 PM on April 19, 2013 [2 favorites]


Five by Five
posted by Miko at 9:29 PM on April 19, 2013 [1 favorite]




From Nate Bell, R-AR, aka @NateBell4AR "I wonder how many Boston liberals spent the night cowering in their homes wishing they had an AR-15 with a hi-capacity magazine? #2A"

Gohmert: Boston Lockdown Shows Foolishness of Gun Control
posted by homunculus at 9:30 PM on April 19, 2013


markkraft: Sure, perhaps I'm wrong and violence really is the only appropriate response to stop violence. Nevertheless, the optimist in me insists that education and non-violent action will eventually be shown to be the only means to stop the cycle.
posted by bigZLiLk at 9:31 PM on April 19, 2013 [1 favorite]


Boston is warmer; in most of New England, including central and western MA, the trees are rather barren unfortunately. Sorry, I wasn't trying to shit on your poetry or anything, it was just an observation.
posted by WhitenoisE at 9:32 PM on April 19, 2013


Camofrog: “Surely Jesus would withhold the painkillers.”

"Many will say to me on that day, 'Lord, lord, we withheld painkillers from this terrorist scum and even kicked him in the crotch a few times for you just for good measure and for added extralegal justice – come on now, wasn't that totally awesome? You know he deserved it, even before his trial and sentencing!' And I will say to them: 'I never knew you. Get away from me, lawbreakers.'"
posted by koeselitz at 9:32 PM on April 19, 2013 [20 favorites]


markkraft: To clarify, my argument is that one can be educated and intelligent enough to make a bomb, but it takes a particularly sophisticated type of education and intelligence to understand why violence isn't an appropriate reaction to the same.
posted by bigZLiLk at 9:33 PM on April 19, 2013 [3 favorites]


Except, of course, that most terrorists tend to be well educated, and come from middle class backgrounds.

"Two-thirds of British terror suspects are from middle-class backgrounds and those who become suicide bombers are often highly educated" reads the very first sentence in that link (emphasis mine).

This says nothing about bombers in the places mentioned, where the vast majority of these acts occur. As an aside, I wonder how many actual suicide bombers there have even been in Britain. Are we talking a majority of a very tiny sample?
posted by UbuRoivas at 9:34 PM on April 19, 2013 [1 favorite]


homunculus: "From Nate Bell, R-AR, aka @NateBell4AR "I wonder how many Boston liberals spent the night cowering in their homes wishing they had an AR-15 with a hi-capacity magazine? #2A""

Can you imagine how difficult and dangerous those house to house searches would have been for the BPD if every one of those "Boston liberals" answered the door with an AR-15?
posted by Dr. Zira at 9:35 PM on April 19, 2013 [17 favorites]


Bonus: finally, we non-Bostonians can go back to hating all those Masshole sports fans.

Unfortunately, they've taken some of the fun out of it by being so awesome throughout this ordeal.
posted by tonycpsu at 9:39 PM on April 19, 2013 [1 favorite]


I got the news about this via Alan Doyle interrupting the second half of a Great Big Sea concert I was at to announce that "yeah, so, we hear the second suspect is in custody now...." right before singing "River Driver" or something. Somehow that feels wrong.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 9:45 PM on April 19, 2013 [2 favorites]


As much as it hurts my heart, nineteen year olds are more than capable of full blown adult evil.
For that matter, please remember that eighteen and nineteen year olds are quite old enough and frequently are soldiers. Just because for most of us this age seems incredibly young, in point of fact....well, old enough to know better than this.


Somebody else may have said this above, but I remember somebody here making a very good point once, that armies specifically recruit such young men, not so much because they're inherently fitter & stronger than older men, but because their brains (literally), moral faculties, and general maturity have not fully developed, so it's easier to get them to think in the kinds of unsubtle, black & white terms that make them better fighters & order-obeyers than older men with more wisdom.

TL;DR: young men are more likely to believe earnestly in a cause, and fight for it.

The mental problems & suicides that beset them later can surely be attributed, at least in part, to the horrible realities of war crashing right up against their youthful worldviews, bringing about all kinds of nasty cognitive dissonances & coping strategies.
posted by UbuRoivas at 9:46 PM on April 19, 2013 [32 favorites]




Every time I hear New Englanders complain about the summer heat I can't help but think that you people are adorable.
posted by middleclasstool at 9:48 PM on April 19, 2013 [1 favorite]


late to the game, but...

Denying Miranda is just an assertion that the State is answerable to no one and doesn't need to follow anyone's rules. It's arrogant and destructive and it accomplishes nothing.

Yep. And if there is no right to remain silent, is the govt free to coerce speech? I know what Jack Bauer would do.
posted by j_curiouser at 9:49 PM on April 19, 2013 [2 favorites]


I'm just waiting for the news to come out that this was one of the FBI's dubious sting operations that was abandoned, and then the Tsarnaev brothers struck out on their own.
posted by mullingitover at 9:53 PM on April 19, 2013 [7 favorites]


The flip side to that argument about encryption is that keeping the feed open was an opportunity to educate the general public about how amazing and professional and meticulous the BPD was in working through this operation. The way the BPD carried out their operation saved lives. The general public deserves to understand this connection so they can continue to support public government and law enforcement that values similar precision and restraint necessary to keep its citizens safe.
posted by Dr. Zira at 9:55 PM on April 19, 2013 [19 favorites]


Encrypted police scanners: DO NOT WANT.

Cops should have all the technology they need to be efficient at their jobs, up to and including having much better weaponry than civilians can legally possess, but in exchange for being entrusted with that power, the public must have a window into what they're doing as a means of holding them accountable. Police have already pushed back against citizens' legal right to record arrests and other police activities, so count me as a "no" on any move away from transparency. I get that there are drawbacks from everyone being able to listen in, but these are edge cases, and the balance of power is tilted a bit too far in the direction of the police.
posted by tonycpsu at 9:55 PM on April 19, 2013 [42 favorites]


Pretty embarrassing showing for Boston in this manhunt I have to say. Good thing they lifted their "LOCKDOWN" so someone could leave his house and accidentally find the suspect in his backyard while the cops searched "just outside the area all day" according to the NYTimes. Hahaha! Really pathetic. At least they got him though.
posted by ReeMonster at 9:58 PM on April 19, 2013


Bonus: finally, we non-Bostonians can go back to hating all those Masshole sports fans.

Please don't resent us for having won two Super Bowls, two World Series, one NBA trophy, four NCAA hockey titles and one Stanley Cup in this last decade.
posted by wensink at 9:58 PM on April 19, 2013 [7 favorites]


The experiences of Bostonians over the past two days are a part of everyday life at present in Syria, Iraq, parts of Afghanistan and Yemen. They are an almost daily occurrence. On the same day as the marathon, over 50 people were killed by car bombs in Iraq and over 80 in the past week.

I agree with the sentiment, but I honestly wish that people would stop doing this.
posted by triggerfinger at 10:04 PM on April 19, 2013 [14 favorites]


if anything the world is insane, and they're simply expressing their frustration with that world.

Write a fucking novel, sing a song, practice your goddamn game of horseshoes if you're frustrated with the world. Blowing up people IS NOT EXPRESSING FRUSTRATION WITH THE WORLD. IT'S STUPID PSYCHOPATHY.
posted by incessant at 10:04 PM on April 19, 2013 [3 favorites]


I'd like to picture the kid being so far out of it at the time of capture that even if they read him his miranda rights it might not stand up in court anyways, and deciding to spin it as "we don't have to read them under these circumstances" instead of "we would totally have read him his rights if he wasn't half-dead and rather delirious..." to stave off further questions about his current condition. But then I like things to make sense, and there's not been all that much making-sense for me this entire week.
posted by hoople at 10:08 PM on April 19, 2013 [1 favorite]


I agree with the sentiment, but I honestly wish that people would stop doing this.

It was deemed inappropriate while the events were unfolding. When does it become ok to contextualize these events from global perspective, given this is a global site with international membership?
posted by Rumple at 10:09 PM on April 19, 2013 [11 favorites]


Pretty embarrassing showing for Boston in this manhunt I have to say. Good thing they lifted their "LOCKDOWN" so someone could leave his house and accidentally find the suspect in his backyard while the cops searched "just outside the area all day" according to the NYTimes. Hahaha! Really pathetic.

Yeah, they should have looked in that last place first, like when I can't find my keys. Dummies.
posted by Alvy Ampersand at 10:09 PM on April 19, 2013 [14 favorites]


triggerfinger: Perhaps as much as I wish people would stop dismissing these acts as "evil"? The comment wasn't about sentiment, it was about gaining an understanding by putting things into perspective. You may wish it, but an honest perspective can sometimes be uncomfortable and one shouldn't wish to comfort oneself with ignorance simply because it feels better.
posted by bigZLiLk at 10:10 PM on April 19, 2013 [10 favorites]


Yeah, they should have looked in that last place first, like when I can't find my keys. Dummies.

I don't see how anyone can think Boston did a good job in this case, and I don't see why Bostonians should be partying and celebrating in the street after this. A couple of severely disturbed brothers shut down an entire city and dare I say the entire country for two days, three people are dead, and hundreds are traumatized/injured. We've become accustomed to violence and expect the police to ask this way, for suspects to be beaten into submission and for the process to be subverted. It's a stupid, stupid week in the good ol' USA. Police acting like the military. Home searches and lockdowns, manhunts and gunfights. This is NOT one of those "Proud to be an American" moments, for sure. I'm sad for this country and for everyone who has died or been hurt over this.
posted by ReeMonster at 10:21 PM on April 19, 2013 [9 favorites]


I don't think that calling actions evil is a dismissal. It's a refusal to excuse heinous acts by providing exculpatory motivations, like calling a bombing a reaction to an insane world. Bobby Van was comparing it to deliberate cruelty, not to Satan's promptings.
posted by feste at 10:22 PM on April 19, 2013 [3 favorites]


Write a fucking novel, sing a song, practice your goddamn game of horseshoes if you're frustrated with the world. Blowing up people IS NOT EXPRESSING FRUSTRATION WITH THE WORLD. IT'S STUPID PSYCHOPATHY.

In places like Syria, Afghanistan & Iraq it would be closer to describe the situation as a simmering civil war, not unlike the situation in Ireland when the IRA was actively trying to get rid of British rule in the North. Actually, Syria is an out & out revolution against decades of despotic rule by Assad Jnr & Snr.

These civil wars are a vicious circle of tit-for-tat warlike violence, not some philosophical disenchantment or abstracted sense of frustration. More like either a violent response to previous violence, or violence as part of a play for political power. In the case of somebody like Bin Laden, this was extended into framing as a holy war against secularism & the West.

In the case of the two Boston bombers, only time may tell what on earth their motivations were.

On preview: now that the manhunt is over, why not talk about broader world patterns, without, of course, diminishing the anguish & hurt of Bostonians & their loved ones? There's another interesting angle, too: back at the turn of the 19th/20th centuries, students, leftists & anarchists were constantly attempting to assassinate VIPs in this manner. Archduke Franz Ferdinand was the most famous, and maybe final, victim but that assassination was part of an ongoing pattern spanning many years.

Rather than zooming right in on Boston as if it were an isolated, atomic incident, why not wonder what the hell is going on with the world, that so many people apparently think that public violence is an answer, or a means to some kind of end? And that's without suggesting that these are necessarily the same tactics by the same kinds of people. It appears to me that Iraqi v Iraqi violence is more about trying to fill the power void left behind after decades of same old-same old rule, followed by a period of foreign invasion. So, that's a different kind of thing than the IRA, but even a distinction provides some understanding & context.

In all this mess, writing off the entire pattern of violence as mere psychopathy seems to me like taking the easy way out.
posted by UbuRoivas at 10:22 PM on April 19, 2013 [23 favorites]


And talking about patterns of violence may be taking the easy way out when it comes to the actions of these young men. What patterns are they a part of? I think they seem much more caught up in their own narrative of guns and bombs and shootouts with the cops. If there is a pattern, it seems much more deliberately chosen.
posted by feste at 10:28 PM on April 19, 2013 [1 favorite]


for suspects to be beaten into submission

Did this happen here, or are you just blathering on about your general feelings?
posted by benito.strauss at 10:30 PM on April 19, 2013 [1 favorite]


I hope we get to hear from the bomber why he did it. I hope they make that public.
posted by RussHy at 10:33 PM on April 19, 2013


I don't see how anyone can think Boston did a good job in this case

I certainly agree that the paramilitary-like actions of the law enforcement is distressing and disheartening and the Miranda situation gross, given America's on-going civil rights and liberties situation, but I don't see how anyone can actually come up with an informed opinion on how things have been done, given the level of misinformation that's been flying around this week and the fact that the suspect's been in custody all of six hours now.
posted by Alvy Ampersand at 10:33 PM on April 19, 2013 [6 favorites]


you are skirting with some willful blindness, benito. Why do you think they didn't Mirandize him? Consider too a) The gov can torture b) they can indefinitely detain without charges c) habeus is suspended for terror suspects. I think a beating is gonna be the introductory bit.
posted by j_curiouser at 10:37 PM on April 19, 2013


CNN:

In Watertown, it wasn't long before SWAT teams shouted over a loudspeaker: "Thank you, thank you! It was a pleasure! USA! USA!"

Not a fan of this dynamic...
posted by threeants at 10:38 PM on April 19, 2013 [17 favorites]


Never said my opinion was informed. Just my opinion, but I DO feel, on the gut level, just looking at the situation how it's been handled over the last few days, and the circumstances surrounding his accidental and lucky capture, that it doesn't feel or look good. It's also something having to do with our ravenous appetite for up-to-the-second news/information, Twitter updates and "Real-time" anything.. our fear of terrorism, whatever that means anymore what with our "remote-controlled bringers of death from the sky" we call drones, and our distrust/fear of foreigners.. the need to make a huge situation where one didn't need to be made.
posted by ReeMonster at 10:39 PM on April 19, 2013 [2 favorites]


bigZLiLk: “The comments about 'evil' in relation to these incidents are not helpful and merely obfuscate the human condition and real world situation. The experiences of Bostonians over the past two days are a part of everyday life at present in Syria, Iraq, parts of Afghanistan and Yemen. They are an almost daily occurrence. On the same day as the marathon, over 50 people were killed by car bombs in Iraq and over 80 in the past week. The perpetrators of these acts are not insane, if anything the world is insane, and they're simply expressing their frustration with that world... I do not want to suggest this makes it any less depressing. However, one will not contribute to understanding these actions by dismissing them as evil.”

First of all, the idea of evil is not a dismissal. The framework of moral and ethical thought is not some pabulum offered to give some kind of silly and easy way to understand tragedy. It's kind of odd to me that anyone would suggest that moral thought itself is inherently dismissive.

Second of all, I think people in Yemen, Syria, Boston, Afghanistan, and Yemen would find it severely and extraordinarily patronizing to hear that someone in a faraway country took it upon themselves to announce that the people who threaten daily to blow them up aren't evil. Maybe I just have a shoddy conception of daily life in those countries, but somehow I have a feeling that using bombs to tear people's bodies apart doesn't become any less evil simply because it's a daily occurrence.

Mostly, though, I'm interested in the first part. Why in the world do you believe that the conception of evil amounts to a dismissal? I guess maybe you're concerned with people here who are talking about how whoever did this is "just evil" and should just be summarily punished immediately, without compassion. I agree that that's dismissive; but to toss out the whole concept of evil therefore seems sort of ridiculous to me. Why should we jettison all moral frameworks simply because we meet with one that's simplistic?

I guess maybe I'm taking your comment to be broader than you meant it. Regardless, though, there is such a thing as evil, there is such a thing as doing evil in the world, and it has to be dealt with. Unfortunately I don't believe there's such a thing as a wholly and thoroughly evil person; but that only means we have to take evil itself even more seriously, working to eradicate it where we can and doing our best for people from whom it cannot be entirely removed.
posted by koeselitz at 10:40 PM on April 19, 2013 [6 favorites]


Not a fan of this dynamic...

Eh, I hate rah-rah "we just put a boot in your terrist ass" machismo more than most, but given what the greater Boston area and Watertown went through, I'm inclined to let this one pass.
posted by tonycpsu at 10:41 PM on April 19, 2013 [4 favorites]


It was deemed inappropriate while the events were unfolding. When does it become ok to contextualize these events from global perspective, given this is a global site with international membership?

I don't think that anyone said it was inappropriate. Sadness over tragedy is not a zero-sum game. Tragedy is not a competition. Acting like people don't care about global events just because they're sad about Boston (especially on Metafilter, where you'll find the opposite to be true) is seems kind of nasty and like you're shaming people for not holding an equal amount of grief and horror in their hearts for every fucking tragic and shocking thing that happens in this world on a daily, hourly basis. It is not unnatural or wrong or bad to feel more affected or sad about things that happen which are closer to home.

The comment wasn't about sentiment, it was about gaining an understanding by putting things into perspective. You may wish it, but an honest perspective can sometimes be uncomfortable and one shouldn't wish to comfort oneself with ignorance simply because it feels better.


I can assure you that I have a pretty good perspective of what's happening in the world, but thanks for the patronizing comment.
posted by triggerfinger at 10:41 PM on April 19, 2013 [14 favorites]


Regardless, though, there is such a thing as evil, there is such a thing as doing evil in the world, and it has to be dealt with.

koeselitz, could you please define "evil"? Thanks.
posted by Rumple at 10:43 PM on April 19, 2013 [4 favorites]


This is NOT one of those "Proud to be an American" moments, for sure. I'm sad for this country and for everyone who has died or been hurt over this.

I agree, there's a lot shit that went down here (especially the lockdown bs/and unofficial Martial Law that seemed almost an expected state by the authorities) but there's a time and a place and for now I think it's time for reason and perspective and normalcy to re-establish itself and for everyone to take a breather.

But to be sure, I would hope, the citizens of Boston and the country as a whole look at exactly how much it truly wants to make the Law Enforcement establishment so massively powerful that it has de facto unquestioned right to expect citizens to give up their freedom of movement and interactions with one another at a moments notice, and with nary a whimper.

For one thing I have no idea how in the fuck the authorities expected to search every house w/o a warrant? Wouldn't a home or apartment dweller informing them all was secure in their home be enough?? Because what I think I saw there was the closest thing I've ever seen to a Posse Comitatus and Law Enforcement acting like soldiers going from house to house expecting, literally presuming they had power over the whole citizenry.

But all in due time, I guess. Some downtime and some cups raised in relief and appreciation for everyone, from the top to bottom, including the citizenry or ESPECIALLY the citizenry, is not such a completely bad thing. Those people in Boston should applaud themselves, the cops and the rest of that whole infrastructure shouldn't need it or expect it.

Indeed applauding the police is just creepy and feels wrong as all fuck. It is an absolutely deplorable precedent, that has deeply dangerous textual impact on the whole of what a free and democratic civilization builds it's foundation upon.
posted by Skygazer at 10:47 PM on April 19, 2013 [13 favorites]


Apologies if this has already been posted:

From Why Should I Care That No One’s Reading Dzhokhar Tsarnaev His Miranda Rights?
... And so the FBI will surely ask 19-year-old Tsarnaev anything it sees fit. Not just what law enforcement needs to know to prevent a terrorist threat and keep the public safe but anything else it deemed related to “valuable and timely intelligence.” Couldn’t that be just about anything about Tsarnaev’s life, or his family, given that his alleged accomplice was his older brother (killed in a shootout with police)? There won’t be a public uproar. Whatever the FBI learns will be secret: We won’t know how far the interrogation went. And besides, no one is crying over the rights of the young man who is accused of killing innocent people, helping his brother set off bombs that were loaded to maim, and terrorizing Boston Thursday night and Friday. But the next time you read about an abusive interrogation, or a wrongful conviction that resulted from a false confession, think about why we have Miranda in the first place. It’s to stop law enforcement authorities from committing abuses. Because when they can make their own rules, sometime, somewhere, they inevitably will.
posted by scody at 10:49 PM on April 19, 2013 [30 favorites]


I don't like the concept of evil because it seems to be reifying harmful choices as originating from an external force, which is opposed by goodness, and it tends to encourage a Manichaean world view were people are divided into two opposing camps, when in reality the choices that face us may not be that clear. Considering certain people and acts as evil also tends to encourage an all or nothing response to it. If something is evil, it should be exterminated at all costs. That is the outlook that leads people like these bombers to do what they do.
posted by empath at 10:51 PM on April 19, 2013 [14 favorites]


And talking about patterns of violence may be taking the easy way out when it comes to the actions of these young men. What patterns are they a part of? I think they seem much more caught up in their own narrative of guns and bombs and shootouts with the cops. If there is a pattern, it seems much more deliberately chosen.

That may well be the case; I don't know but I hope more information comes to light.

But nobody's going to come any closer to answers to any of this without being able to talk about it. If, for the sake of argument, it's a personal narrative about shootouts and so on as you say, that might put them more on a continuum with some mass shooters than international bombers.

However, at root of all this, whether talking about shoot-em-up wannabe heroes or international suicide bombers, is there any fundamental disenfranchisement at work, causing young people to become so disillusioned with the world, that their highest vision of a great future for themselves is to go out in a blaze of bullets or shrapnel?

Certainly, I'd lay some of the blame on the cult of celebrity, and the wider, more pervasive, and inescapable reach of globalised media & globalism itself may have something to do with it. Some people are apparently unable to accept their dharma as a small fish in a small tank, perhaps, but why now & why in this manner? And is it worth asking what historical factors were at work at the end of the 19th Century, and are they similar in any way at all, or is that a red herring?
posted by UbuRoivas at 10:52 PM on April 19, 2013 [5 favorites]


On MSNBC just now Lawrence O'Donnell was interviewing a person identified as "Emily", a neighbor of the Tsarnaevs. She recounted an anecdote about an occasion when Tamerlan helped her bring in her groceries and said that this was typical of the family. She said that both parents had been lawyers in Russia and that the father had been "beaten by the KGB" and that when they moved to the United States the parents were unable to continue to practice law, particularly the father due to the injuries to his head.
posted by XMLicious at 10:53 PM on April 19, 2013 [1 favorite]


I think of evil as deliberate cruelty, will and conscious destruction of things that are beautiful, taking pleasure in harming others, cruelty to animals and children. Sadism is evil. Actions are evil, not people. The actions of these brothers--the bombing of the marathon, I would call evil actions.
posted by feste at 10:55 PM on April 19, 2013 [3 favorites]


"This says nothing about bombers in the places mentioned, where the vast majority of these acts occur."

It's pretty much the same wherever you go.

For terrorists to survive, much less thrive, in today’s globalized, technologically savvy and interconnected world, the preeminent terrorism expert, Walter Laqueur has argued, they have to be educated, have some technical competence and be able to move without attracting attention in alien societies. In brief, such a person will have to have an education that cannot be found among the poor in Pakistani or Egyptian villages or Palestinian refugee camps, only among relatively well-off town folk.

Maybe you can use less educated individuals as suicide bombers, but that still means you have someone(s) with some degree of education recruiting volunteers, acquiring materials, making bombs, planning the attack, etc.

It should be pointed out, however, that just because these people are oftentimes fairly well educated, that doesn't mean that they aren't very religious, very paranoid, conspiratorial, prone to anger, and, quite often, gullible and easily misled. These are also fairly common traits of terrorists, according to Lacqueur.

posted by markkraft at 11:01 PM on April 19, 2013


Rumple: “koeselitz, could you please define ‘evil’? Thanks.”

Sure, I guess. In a narrow sense, it's the opposite of "good." (People do believe that there's such a thing as "good," right?) In a broader sense, I guess it's more difficult, but at least in the political realm evil is doing harm to others. Is that satisfactory?

I mean, conversely – do you really believe that nothing anyone ever does is wrong?

empath: “I don't like the concept of evil because it seems to be reifying harmful choices as originating from an external force...”

But I've specifically said that I don't believe that harmful choices come from some external source or anything like that.

“... and it tends to encourage a Manichaean world view were people are divided into two opposing camps, when in reality the choices that face us may not be that clear.”

This is like saying you don't the ideas of brightness and darkness because they encourage people to think there's nothing in between them. Why would they do that? The point of having ends to a spectrum is to define the spectrum so that it can be understood, not to deny that the spectrum exists.

“Considering certain people and acts as evil also tends to encourage an all or nothing response to it. If something is evil, it should be exterminated at all costs. That is the outlook that leads to people like these bombers to do what they do.”

You can't exterminate the harm that people do to each other "at all costs" by harming people wholesale. That wouldn't even make sense.

Let me put it this way: do you believe that it's possible for people to do things that are wrong? If the answer is yes, then you're admitting to a conception of evil, at least the way I am defining it. (And I can't help but feel as though this is how it's generally defined.) If the big fancy word scares you or makes you feel as though I'm making it abstract or irrational or something, whatever, we don't need to use it – but that's all I meant, and moral thought is at least predicated on the idea that right and wrong are at least possible choices on a spectrum, even if you don't call them "good" and "evil."
posted by koeselitz at 11:04 PM on April 19, 2013 [4 favorites]


Regardless, though, there is such a thing as evil, there is such a thing as doing evil in the world, and it has to be dealt with.

I think evil is a scapegoat. It's easy to dismiss someone as evil rather than try to understand the choices and circumstances that led them to do harmful things.
posted by Malice at 11:04 PM on April 19, 2013 [7 favorites]


Whether they read him the Miranda card or not, he has the right to remain silent. The right is inalienable, and self evident.
posted by Trochanter at 11:05 PM on April 19, 2013


> "When the law gets bent out of shape for Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, it’s easier to bend out of shape of the rest of us."

Do you really think you could stand upright in the winds that would blow then?
posted by homunculus at 11:05 PM on April 19, 2013 [19 favorites]


triggerfinger: Sorry, I didn't mean to be patronizing. I simply feel that "evil" isn't a useful term for getting a deeper understanding of the motives of these people. In fact, it's the opposite. I still don't understand why you wish people didn't put things in perspective if you agreed?

I maintain my position that this: "Blowing up people IS NOT EXPRESSING FRUSTRATION WITH THE WORLD. IT'S STUPID PSYCHOPATHY" is a refusal to understand human behavior.

I think keoselitz response simply confirms my point. Arguing over which definition of evil applies is not going to get us any closer to understanding these acts.
posted by bigZLiLk at 11:06 PM on April 19, 2013 [3 favorites]


Malice: “I think evil is a scapegoat. It's easy to dismiss someone as evil rather than try to understand the choices and circumstances that led them to do harmful things.”

Er – so you genuinely don't think there's such a thing as someone doing something that is wrong?
posted by koeselitz at 11:06 PM on April 19, 2013 [1 favorite]


Please don't resent us for having won two Super Bowls, two World Series, one NBA trophy, four NCAA hockey titles and one Stanley Cup in this last decade.

Cheating their way to Super Bowls, spending the World Series runs accusing opposing players of having AIDS, driving one of your NBA trophy champions out of town, and turning a post-Stanley Cup moment into a Tea Party embarrassment.

But you're good at college hockey.

/hamburger. A little.
posted by inigo2 at 11:07 PM on April 19, 2013 [1 favorite]


I'd like to know how the kid got to this point. The way to find out will be through something like compassion. By basically caring to treat him better than one might think he deserves (which is, in terms of his value to society, less than nothing).

Knowing is half the battle.

Can't stop what you don't know.
posted by five fresh fish at 11:08 PM on April 19, 2013 [19 favorites]


I don't think these brothers thought what they were doing was evil. I think it was some form of utterly desperate fucked up expression that came from incredible feelings of being ungrounded, confused, angry and internal chaos, perhaps a sort of fatigue to the need to feel part of something and yet never feeling a part of it, and thereby seduced into some self-righteous state of a need for action. Any action, the bigger the better, founded on really a form of mental illness. And that chaos that comes from that state is my idea of true evil.

But we look at the younger brother, and he seemed pretty okay in his ability to function and have a community and win a scholarship and go to Boston Latin and then on to UMass Dartmouth, and I think he was just a patsy for his brother...out of blind love just seduced by his brothers pathology. So I think he's a victim here as well. I think he just did not have the moral inner structure yet or firmness of his convictions to correct his brother, and so he became an accomplice with his blind faith in his family. His brother. He turned his ability to think for himself either off or he's simply was young to give his own thoughts as much weight and value as his brother.

And I think his brother sacrificed himself for him.
posted by Skygazer at 11:09 PM on April 19, 2013 [3 favorites]


kieselitz: I would say that the terms "good" and "evil" are arbitrary. Not everyone is going to agree with your definition, and that doesn't make either of you right or wrong. It simply makes it difficult to gain a better understanding of the reality.
posted by bigZLiLk at 11:10 PM on April 19, 2013 [1 favorite]


I'd like to ask something about the events timeline, if anyone knows (here on the other side of the pond, I wake up to over a thousand new comments, so I might have missed this): all the controlled (or uncontrolled?) detonations that were happening – were these just various unidentified items that might have possibly been bombs? Or do we know if there were actual explosive devices planted beyond the marathon itself?

Also, has their activity at MIT ever been explained, or is this still unresolved?
posted by taz at 11:11 PM on April 19, 2013 [1 favorite]


malibustacey9999: "And to further assure you that I am a cold-hearted bitch, as a mother who can't forget the photo of the 8 year old boy they killed, I hope the staff at the hospital are holding back on the painkillers."

That's not "cold-hearted", that's straight up sadistic. Goddammit, how many times do we have to keep saying this: we aren't supposed to torture people in democracies!
posted by barnacles at 11:12 PM on April 19, 2013 [27 favorites]


Does anybody actually ever believe what they are doing is evil? I mean FFS, Hitler truly thought he was right and doing things for the Aryan race and that he was fighting "evil" himself.
posted by symbioid at 11:14 PM on April 19, 2013 [3 favorites]


I wanted to ask about the big chest wound in the postmortem photo of suspect one. Do we know what caused it?
posted by Trochanter at 11:14 PM on April 19, 2013


UbuRoivas, your comment "that might put them more on a continuum with some mass shooters than international bombers" reads very true to me in some ways. Maybe the older brother fits this pattern better, because he charged the police and was gunned down, wearing a suicide vest. I've often thought some of these mass shooters, had they ended up in other places in the world would have been ripe for recruitment for suicide missions.

But people play out their lives in more and in less conscious ways, I think. If my country were in a civil war, I might be carried along with friends and family to carry out revenge attacks, or to target a different religious sect, or tribe, and so engage in horrible actions. But that seems different than creating one's own anti-social or anti-hero narrative as a shooter or a bomber in a country without civil strife. Anders Brevik, for example, spent years crafting his own story--I would certainly describe his actions as evil, whatever his wacky political view, because he chased down children for destruction, dressed as a cop. I bet he thought about it a lot, too
posted by feste at 11:14 PM on April 19, 2013


Wikipedia on "evil" is quite a rabbit hole.
posted by Camofrog at 11:15 PM on April 19, 2013 [4 favorites]


bigZLiLk: “I think keoselitz response simply confirms my point. Arguing over which definition of evil applies is not going to get us any closer to understanding these acts.”

So you genuinely don't think it's bad to harm other human beings? You think that's maybe good, or maybe has no value at all whatsoever? And humans can and should act in entirely arbitrary ways, harming each other if it pleases them?

I honestly have no idea how you've gotten what you've gotten out of what I said.

Seriously, let's break this down. You're making the claim that a belief in the concept of evil prevents any understanding of human action. But human actions are necessarily wrapped up in whether things are good or bad. The people who flew planes into the towers on 9/11 believed they were doing good. I believe they were confused, that they were mistaken about what the good is, and that through their confusion they did evil. I would not understand that event at all if I didn't understand the evil they did, if I viewed all those deaths as just unimportant and valueless events that represented no loss whatsoever. But they did represent losses! Every time somebody dies on the street in Afghanistan or in Yemen, it's an evil, and it represents a loss. If I saw death and suffering as unimportant – if I didn't assign a value to it – then I absolutely would not understand what human life means.

Wisdom and justice means trying first of all to bring people to understand what the good is so that they don't do evil things out of confusion. As I said emphatically above, that means not seeing people as evil, but rather seeing acts and events as evil.

bigZLiLk: “I would say that the terms 'good' and 'evil' are arbitrary. Not everyone is going to agree with your definition, and that doesn't make either of you right or wrong. It simply makes it difficult to gain a better understanding of the reality.”

If you genuinely can't see that six million Jews killed in gas chambers, that even more killed in camps in Siberia, that tragedies all over the world are themselves evil, I am almost speechless and don't know what to tell you. I think you're either very cold, to the point of being inhuman, or else you utterly and completely misunderstand what I mean by "evil."
posted by koeselitz at 11:15 PM on April 19, 2013 [3 favorites]


Trochanter: please read upthread.
posted by bigZLiLk at 11:16 PM on April 19, 2013


bigZLiLk: if you're under the silly impression that I'm using the word "evil" in the hopes of branding some human beings with that term and thereby justifying some kind of revenge on them, you haven't read a word I've said. But I gather that's what you assume without thinking when you hear the word.
posted by koeselitz at 11:16 PM on April 19, 2013


I wanted to ask about the big chest wound in the postmortem photo of suspect one. Do we know what caused it?

People upthread were talking about a last-ditch & rarely successful medical intervention used to try & preserve life against all odds.
posted by UbuRoivas at 11:18 PM on April 19, 2013


The concepts "evil" and "morally wrong" aren't the same thing. "Evil" in the form of "extremely and universally malevolent" seems to me like something that would still make sense even without moral rightness and wrongness.
posted by XMLicious at 11:18 PM on April 19, 2013


symbioid: “Does anybody actually ever believe what they are doing is evil? I mean FFS, Hitler truly thought he was right and doing things for the Aryan race and that he was fighting 'evil' himself.”

Of course not. As Socrates put it, nobody does evil willingly – they only do it out of confusion, thinking that they're doing good.
posted by koeselitz at 11:19 PM on April 19, 2013 [2 favorites]


evil triumphs when good men do nothing, right koeselitz?
posted by empath at 11:20 PM on April 19, 2013


Koeslitz, just reading along here, I don't think you've read much of what bigZLiLk is saying, either. You keep putting words into his/her mouth that aren't what they posted.
posted by hattifattener at 11:20 PM on April 19, 2013 [2 favorites]


Mod note: fixed bigZLiLk's link
posted by taz (staff) at 11:21 PM on April 19, 2013


koeselitz: I've tried to argue that there will be people that will assume that. I believe it is necessary to share a person's values to share an interpretation of a moral position, and that arguing from an ethical position will tend to preclude an understanding of people's actions that do not share the same ethics or worldview.
posted by bigZLiLk at 11:21 PM on April 19, 2013 [1 favorite]


But sadists can get pleasure from the evil actions, can enjoy them, while still believing in their greater good. If you see your victims as collateral damage (as T. McVeigh called the children in daycare at the Murrah Building), you can feel superior and proud of your destructive ability. Carrying backpacks with bombs through throngs of happy, celebrating people, maybe the brothers felt special, full of pride in their secret power. If they did, then that's evil. In the Hitler example, yes, he may have felt the final solution was right as a concept, but he liked it, too--he enjoyed that he was making them suffer, and that's evil.
posted by feste at 11:27 PM on April 19, 2013 [1 favorite]


Very destructive evil, that is carried out by more than just one person, displays the same social structure every single time.

There are the leaders (OBL, Hitler, Charles Manson, the older brother here), driven by their own twisted logic and a fierce confusion and anger, and as I said above is pathology and mental illness. They are charismatic, deeply narcissistic and extremely high-functioning within their pathology.

And there are the followers, (the 19 hijackers of 9/11, the nazi's following orders, the Squiggy Fromms and the younger brother in this situation), who give themselves over to this greater and seductive and driven charismatic figure, who allows them to completely turn off their own need to be responsible for themselves, or think for themselves and makes them feel good about it. Granted in this case, I think the young brother loved and probably held his brother in huge esteem, so it might be a tad different than the other examples but not so much.

So evil, has these two component of a powerful visionary seeming pathology (selfishness, twistedness) and mental illness combined with the followers who're not only perpetrators of this evil themselves, but unwitting victims, as well.
posted by Skygazer at 11:30 PM on April 19, 2013 [2 favorites]


bigZLiLk: “I've tried to argue that there will be people that will assume that. I believe it is necessary to share a person's values to share an interpretation of a moral position, and that arguing from an ethical position will tend to preclude an understanding of people's actions that do not share the same ethics or worldview.”

The assumption you are making – a bold and brash one at that – is that there is no correct ethical doctrine. You've made this assumption so thoroughly and so completely that any other position seems to be unthinkable to you.

I will not argue against your claim and your assumption. I will only point out that your idea that taking ethical positions is bad because it precludes an understanding of ethical positions pretty much forbids you from even commenting on this event, as it forbids you from speaking of justice or the proper course we should take in any situation. For how could you do so without making understanding-precluding judgments?
posted by koeselitz at 11:30 PM on April 19, 2013 [2 favorites]


koeselitz: Of course not. As Socrates put it, nobody does evil willingly – they only do it out of confusion, thinking that they're doing good.

I dunno. I think a lot of evil also results from callous indifference as well, just not caring whether your actions hurt people as long as you benefit.
posted by Mitrovarr at 11:31 PM on April 19, 2013 [2 favorites]


I just want to emphasize that the worst atrocities are perpetrated by those who think that they are absolutely certain what evil is and that they are good.
posted by empath at 11:34 PM on April 19, 2013 [25 favorites]


People who don't draw hard and fast lines in the sand on morality are extraordinarily unlikely to kill anyone for their beliefs, after all.
posted by empath at 11:35 PM on April 19, 2013 [9 favorites]


If you look at it from the point of view of "trying to get the best results from this situation" there's no good reason at all not to Miranda-ize him.

The authorities aren't acting as though there are other hidden bombs not detonated, or as if there are other accomplices out there. And how long does a Miranda warning take?

You would think that you'd do it, simply to avoid possible legal challenges to your evidence anyway.

The other interesting question is - why are they telling us? They aren't telling us what they're asking nor how they are asking it - if they simply didn't tell us that he wasn't read his rightss, we wouldn't find out until much later, when it was old news. And even as someone who believes in full government transparency, I don't think it applies to a criminal case - there's nothing forcing them to tell us.

No, there's only one reason that they didn't Miranda-ize him and publicized the fact - as a message to the rest of us: "Your rights are not inalienable. You have them at our pleasure, and if we choose to, we will rescind them."
posted by lupus_yonderboy at 11:36 PM on April 19, 2013 [11 favorites]


koeselitz: I'm not suggesting that taking an ethical position is bad, nor that I do not have one. I'm simply trying to avoid emotive reactions infecting a discussion/analysis that attempt to achieve understanding.

Trying to be objective about something does not preclude one from understanding someone else's ethics. That would suggest one needs to be religious to understand religious beliefs and actions.

I wasn't making an argument about justice, nor the proper course of action. I thought we were attempting to understand individual actions that we find abhorrent, without resorting to moralizing.
posted by bigZLiLk at 11:37 PM on April 19, 2013


Here's the thing, even if they don't mirandize him, he still has all the rights. The only thing not mirandizing him accomplishes is to make anything he says inadmissible in court. But the chances of them needing a signed confession to convict him are pretty minimal.
posted by empath at 11:38 PM on April 19, 2013 [6 favorites]


Empath: I just want to emphasize that the worst atrocities are perpetrated by those who think that they are absolutely certain what evil is and that they are good.


Every single person struggles with inner chaos, and is susceptible to doing something evil at any time.

I totally agree, the most self-righteous people, like those with unthinking blind dogma or ideology or unquestioning sense of cultural or religious or racial superiority are the most dangerous of all. I mean then you get wars and genocide.
posted by Skygazer at 11:41 PM on April 19, 2013 [2 favorites]


> Here's the thing, even if they don't mirandize him, he still has all the rights.

So why aren't they doing it, if it makes no difference?
posted by lupus_yonderboy at 11:42 PM on April 19, 2013 [3 favorites]


Yeah I don't understand it either,people had those rights before the Miranda law was in place, and they still do if someone forgets, or refuses, to read them their rights. I'm pretty sure the suspect was most likely raised on cop shows and movies just like most of us here and knows his rights. The only thing I can thing of is that they are pulling some kind of procedural trickery over who makes the actual arrest and at what time they do it.
posted by Ad hominem at 11:44 PM on April 19, 2013


For whatever it's worth, and hoping that it might improve the quality of the discussion about "evil", I'll assert that what's in contention here really involves two dimensions and it's because that's not being recognized that there's more contention and confusion than there otherwise would be.

One axis is about choice and determinism in the context of moral actions. And, yeah, it's more complicated than that because we have a lot of trouble even getting our heads around how people could choose to do things which cause harm, and yet they do, and, well, it's confusing. Both koeselitz and I are quite familiar with the history of moral philosophy for the same reason, but I think he's maybe not recognizing that "the problem of evil" is a constant thread throughout its entire history. He can hardly blame mefites for not taking evil as being self-evident when all the great moral philosophers had a lot of trouble making sense of it.

But the less recognized axis in this involves in-group versus out-group, empathy and othering.

There's a very strong relationship in how people evaluate what is and isn't "evil", in a given example, with their feelings about affiliation. And the causal relationship is circular, too, as seeing someone as "evil" pushes people to ostracize those they formerly saw as in-group.

When I've read the discussions about this in this and the previous thread, I've had the very weird experience of finding myself in very strong agreement and disagreement with articulated positions taken on both sides of the argument. My sense is that this is because I'm strongly in one of those implicit quadrants and not the other three.

I think that "evil" acts are committed and that those who commit them are responsible for them, but all the things that go into those decisions are individually and generally quite varied, from an extreme where someone really enjoys being hurtful to the other extreme where they've been thoroughly socialized (long-term or in an extreme situation) to see it as fully justified and necessary. The only dog I have in that particular part of the argument is with those who want to deny that either side of that spectrum exists, which I think is very wrongheaded.

My strongest feelings involve how I think people are using their view of morality to distance themselves from their capacity for evil and to consequently fully "other" everyone they deem as having committed evil acts. What's interesting is that they can do this on either side of the previous argument — they can see all evil acts as being a function of socialization and ill mental health, or they can see it as some nearly incomprehensible active force that somehow corrupts other people. Either way, they are implicitly pushing the issue into somewhere outside their own affiliation and sense of self.

As a number of people joked earlier, we're not going to hash out these issues in this thread, especially given that moral philosophy hasn't satisfactorily answered the question of evil and the issues surrounding empathy, othering, and compassion for evil-doers are all extremely thorny and contentious. But I do think that it might help to be cognizant that it's an easy mistake to make to sort of collapse all disagreement with oneself into an assumed single dimension of opposition, when, in fact, the disagreement may not be that someone is questioning the existence of evil, but the othering involved; or that they're not questioning the othering, but the ability for people to choose to commit evil; or any of the other possible permutations. There's various hot-buttons in these issues for most people and when someone happens to hit one of yours, it may not mean what you assume that it means.
posted by Ivan Fyodorovich at 11:47 PM on April 19, 2013 [22 favorites]


I imagine (though I am not well-informed) that they may want to use it as a carrot to offer him. As in, "Look, we haven't read you your rights yet, so anything you say right now is going to be thrown out when this gets to court. So: are there any more bombs out there?"
posted by rifflesby at 11:48 PM on April 19, 2013 [6 favorites]


Maybe he is unconscious or otherwise able to understand and acknowledge and they are being super careful and waiting for him to be lucid.
posted by Ad hominem at 11:48 PM on April 19, 2013 [1 favorite]


bigZLiLk: I hear you. And I agree with you on evil. I agree that the US government does a lot of odious things every day in other countries that are just as tragic as Boston and I certainly don't think American lives are any more important than any other lives as someone, somewhere said on one of these threads. The things that happen in this world break my heart every day.

I was really responding to (and I'm a little sensitive to this because it's happening a lot) what seems to be a common theme that comes up whenever something big like this happens in the US; where people from outside the US essentially shake their fingers and accuse Americans for not giving equal time to other tragedies and suggesting that we don't understand or care what our own government does overseas. That may be true for some of the population. For a lot of the population it is not. And at some point it just becomes both sides pointing fingers at each other and basically saying "Stop minimizing our pain!". Which is crazy because I think we're on the same side.

And I'm super tired right now because it's been a long week with these sad things happening on top of normal life stuff so if I misconstrued the point you were trying to make I apologize.
posted by triggerfinger at 11:49 PM on April 19, 2013 [1 favorite]


"Of course not. As Socrates put it, nobody does evil willingly – they only do it out of confusion, thinking that they're doing good."

Yeah, but that dialog really didn't settle the issue to anyone's satisfaction, including Socrates's.

For me, Aristotle in his Nicomachean Ethics pretty much soundly refuted Plato when he made a very persuasive case that most acts are not deliberate acts, they're the product of habituation, and therefore the moral content of those acts is not found in the presumed deliberation that led to them, but to the habituation that led to them.
posted by Ivan Fyodorovich at 11:51 PM on April 19, 2013 [16 favorites]


hattifattener: “Koeslitz, just reading along here, I don't think you've read much of what bigZLiLk is saying, either. You keep putting words into his/her mouth that aren't what they posted.”

I was going to point out that he did quite clearly say that "the comments about 'evil' in relation to these incidents are not helpful and merely obfuscate the human condition and real world situation" – apparently claiming that we shouldn't see them in terms of evil at all. But in the light of his last comment, I wonder if I misread him after all, and he didn't mean something more like "these comments about 'evil.'" I'm not sure.

empath: “I just want to emphasize that the worst atrocities are perpetrated by those who think that they are absolutely certain what evil is and that they are good. People who don't draw hard and fast lines in the sand on morality are extraordinarily unlikely to kill anyone for their beliefs, after all.”

It's very hard to hear phrases like "the worst atrocities" and not hear you saying that you draw a hard and fast line in the sand on the moral wrongness of atrocities. Moreover it seems to me that Stalin was indeed exactly a person who refused to draw any moral distinctions whatsoever – he really was neither communist nor capitalist nor a believer in any creed except the extension of his own power. And even if you think Stalin is a bad example, you can't actually justify fighting against Stalin, or working to prevent atrocities of any kind, without drawing lines in the sand on morality.

I should say that I think I understand where you're coming from. I think some caution is essential, particularly when we're talking about huge things that affect the lives of millions, because terrible, hideous mistakes can be made, particularly when we're confused about what the best way of acting is. It takes wisdom to do good. However, I don't think we'll get to the point where we can build a just world and prevent tragedies and atrocities if we try to convince ourselves that there's no such thing as good and evil. We have to find ways of actually acting in the world; human life demands it. That's why I feel like starting with simple, clear things (like: do no harm to fellow humans) is probably the best way to begin.
posted by koeselitz at 12:00 AM on April 20, 2013 [3 favorites]


(Sorry if I made this a huge deal in an unwarranted way; it seemed like the right time and place to me, but if it wasn't, I apologize. I really do hope that this was taken by all to be a friendly discussion. I'm a bit relieved right now at what happened tonight – not happy, really, but relieved at least that I don't have to worry so much anymore about people I care about – so I felt like it was worth it to have a good conversation among friends. Anyway, regards and thanks to BigZLiLk, empath, hattifattener, Rumple, Malice, and all. Have a good night, folks.)
posted by koeselitz at 12:08 AM on April 20, 2013


And even if you think Stalin is a bad example, you can't actually justify fighting against Stalin, or working to prevent atrocities of any kind, without drawing lines in the sand on morality

The US didn't fight the cold war because Stalin was a bad guy, nor did we go into WWII because Hitler was killing the jews. The north didn't fight the civil war to end slavery, either (though the south went to war to protect it)
posted by empath at 12:09 AM on April 20, 2013 [5 favorites]


We don't *know* that the older brother was the leader. It's the most likely configuration, obviously, but I'm a little disturbed by people stating it as outright fact. And I don't really buy the more elaborate scenarios where the younger had little idea what was going to happen -- he doesn't look any more startled or alarmed than his brother in the photos.

Really, if the twitter account is correct, you could see the younger brother as potentially the more disturbed. Though given the very shitty level of reporting and 'doxxing' that has been going on all week I probably shouldn't put much reliance on it being his.
posted by tavella at 12:11 AM on April 20, 2013 [1 favorite]


Did we at least invade Iraq for cheap oil?
posted by ShutterBun at 12:12 AM on April 20, 2013


That might have been a bit too elliptical -- one can always justify a fight against what most consider 'evil' out of self-interest or self-defense. It doesn't have to be couched in morality at all.
posted by empath at 12:12 AM on April 20, 2013 [1 favorite]


Debate about atrocity levels aside... All I can think is that the national hangover from this is going to be something fierce. A lockdown of a major American city in daytime is not remotely normal, whether voluntary or not, nor something that's happened before. I'm glad it appears to be all over, for now.

We have major American cities with far more people being injured and maimed and dying every day, so all this bothered me as far as the scale goes, I have to admit. No one who isn't an a-hole could object to the police getting their man, and to how professionally this was handled, on the whole. But yeesh...
posted by raysmj at 12:13 AM on April 20, 2013 [4 favorites]


triggerfinger: These threads are lengthy and I don't get time to read everything, so I can appreciate it might have been misconstrued.

As the discussion between koeselitz and I highlights, not appreciating differing worldviews makes it more difficult to appreciate the circumstances that lead someone to make a decision. I didn't mean to compare the actions of one to another, rather than to point out that certain definitions obfuscate rather than illuminate where there might be massive conflict in perspectives. It appears the older perpetrator of the Boston incidents had difficulty in adjusting to the US, which to me suggests a disconnect in world views. Certainly the act of the bombing is horrible, and yet there are circumstances in this rapidly shrinking world that lead individuals to rationalize violence as justified. I'm not going to suggest I approve such rationalization, but I equally believe that calling it evil tends to result in people dismissing any further analysis of those actions, without an understanding of the others' worldview.

Above, there was a discussion regarding the appropriateness of compassion. I thought perhaps people are seeking to empathize - to understand the worldview and motives of those individuals. That doesn't mean to agree with them, but to accept that sometimes people make decisions their experiences/beliefs suggest are justified. I hope what I've said here will show that (I believe) an act can be evil - a person cannot.
posted by bigZLiLk at 12:15 AM on April 20, 2013 [2 favorites]


koeselitz: Where I said "I equally believe that calling it evil tends to result in people dismissing any further analysis of those actions, without an understanding of the others' worldview", I didn't mean to suggest you personally would. Only that, particularly on the internets, that has been my experience.

Anyway, I've appreciated the discussion. It's appropriate that views be challenged, lest one become complacent and self-righteous. Thank you for challenging mine.
posted by bigZLiLk at 12:23 AM on April 20, 2013 [3 favorites]


bigZLiLk: “Above, there was a discussion regarding the appropriateness of compassion. I thought perhaps people are seeking to empathize - to understand the worldview and motives of those individuals. That doesn't mean to agree with them, but to accept that sometimes people make decisions their experiences/beliefs suggest are justified. I hope what I've said here will show that (I believe) an act can be evil - a person cannot.”

I agree. In fact, I think I'd go farther, in a way – I'd say that mistaken thoughts or confused feelings themselves aren't evil, only the actions. It wasn't evil that the older brother (or either of them) was very confused about the world or hurt or angry. What was evil was the action taken. And I do agree that it's worth trying to understand those thoughts and feelings, not in order to pretend that the action was any less harmful to human beings in the world, but in order to understand the situation and in order to properly institute a punishment that will bring justice to the victims and rehabilitation to the criminal.
posted by koeselitz at 12:25 AM on April 20, 2013 [1 favorite]


I would say if anyone found themselves gloating about something miserable happening to someone else--that's a pretty good sign your empathy gland needs to be rebooted. It's in many ways a natural reaction, but it's a base one.* Relief that someone was captured, or even that their death was necessary to protect others, seems OK. But taking pleasure in their death, or hoping they now suffer in agony? That's not healthy, and it's definitely not what anyone with the authority to make decisions that lead to that outcome should feel.

I'm glad they captured this guy, and I'm glad they're not still running around, and I abhor what they were able to perpetuate. But I can't take any pleasure in the idea of the 19-year-old being treated as anything other than a human being who needs to account for his actions in a dispassionate court of law, and then be held away from society until he's rehabilitated and is able to rejoin the rest of us, assuming that day might come.**

* This is why the concept of hell to me as an atheist is so problematic. Both from the gross "I hope they burn in hell" pleasure-taking of the sanctimonious to the idea that an all-knowing, understanding deity can't forgive everyone, no matter what their deeds.

** OK, this is laughable for the US, but still. What purpose does prison serve other than a torture chamber if we're not trying to rehabilitate the incarcerated?

posted by maxwelton at 12:30 AM on April 20, 2013 [5 favorites]


Evil is a net harm to life, with thousands, millions of determining factors, from gut bacteria to brain injury to hormones to unhappy parents, to refugee camps, to any number of contradictory or cumulative social-cognitive processes guided by accidentally founded emotions and impulses, to historical momentum. We’re axes of action, worked on from above and below, and in the moment of seeming willing only feel ourselves as choosing, when really everything is timing. Nothing can be justified in an ultimate sense – zoom out, civilizations and galaxies die - only partially explained, or understood, from an intermediate view. (Yes, I've had a glass of wine or two.)
posted by nelljie at 12:41 AM on April 20, 2013 [1 favorite]


Huh, I've done it myself. "An act can be evil". Sorry, I still believe this is not a helpful assignation. Retract.
posted by bigZLiLk at 12:43 AM on April 20, 2013 [1 favorite]


ShutterBun... Did we at least invade Iraq for cheap oil?

Looks like China is getting the tigers share of the oil.
...after all, they helped US bankroll the debacle,
posted by quazichimp at 12:46 AM on April 20, 2013


I'm stunned he allowed himself to be taken alive. Why?? Didn't he know that he will certainly be tortured for the rest of his life, however long that is? I am honestly way more confused and mindboggled over why he let himself be taken alive than why he actually partook in all that killing.
posted by cairdeas at 12:55 AM on April 20, 2013


So why aren't they doing it, if it makes no difference?
To make Lindsay Graham happy? I don't really get it either, it seems to be all about being big and tough when it comes to 'turur' cases. They keep talking about "Mirandizing" people as if the police actually gave people their rights, when in fact they have them at all times, the police are just informing them to prevent what they say from being inadmissible.
I doubt people would be falling all over themselves to be "compassionate" had he and his brother devised a "grand rape plan" as opposed to a "grand murder plan."
Or if he was a brown skinned Muslim instead of a white skinned Muslim. Everyone is all "I don't understand how they could do it!??!" when they never say the same thing about brown-skinned Muslim terrorists. It's pretty weird. There's no difference between this guy and any other AQ sympathizer type, aside from his race. Richard Ried and Omar Abdulmutalab weren't even middle eastern/south Asian either, Ried was a poor mixed race Britton, and Abdulmutalab was from a wealthy Nigerian Muslim family, who also had a western education. But I don't remember much of this "where did he go wrong!?" stuff when he was caught.

___
Yeah I have no idea how you could possible know this. Do you really think no one acts with evil intent? That they are all just misguided souls stumbling towards their personal truth?
Evil intent as in thinking "Wow, I am being so evil right now! Awesome!" IMO Maybe only depraved serial killers who get off on being as evil as possible, of whom there are very few. I think it's likely these people had some kind of cause they thought they were furthering here. Other then that people may be totally crazy (like the aurora shooter) or think they are being helpful and condoned by society (like George Zimmerman). Or finally just a complete disregard for other people.


The whole concept of "evil" is just ridiculous. Before 9/11 and the "axis of evil" nonsense I thought the word meant a kind of supernatural thing, like the opposite of holiness, the powers that supernatural villains had in horror movies. Obviously I now know people use the term to describe non-supernatural things, but it still seems pretty stupid to me.
I think of evil as deliberate cruelty, will and conscious destruction of things that are beautiful, taking pleasure in harming others, cruelty to animals and children. Sadism is evil.

Why not simply describe sadism as sadism?
Er – so you genuinely don't think there's such a thing as someone doing something that is wrong?
We already have a word for things that are wrong: "Wrong".

On preview: now that the manhunt is over, why not talk about broader world patterns, without, of course, diminishing the anguish & hurt of Bostonians & their loved ones?
I'd rather follow the thread to find out more about the case then random pseudo-philosophical speculation about the nature of human maliciousness. It's not like the question is going to get resolved.
posted by delmoi at 1:05 AM on April 20, 2013 [8 favorites]


It doesn't mean it's not worth discussing either. That's a pretty nihilistic attitude.
posted by Skygazer at 1:10 AM on April 20, 2013 [1 favorite]


It doesn't mean it's not worth discussing either. That's a pretty nihilistic attitude.
It's not worth discussing in a thread on the marathon bombers, since that is a more interesting subject then amateur hour philosophy (on 4/20, no less!)

Interestingly it sounds like the 'lockdown' actually prevented anyone from finding him and and that he was found as soon as it was lifted. So the lockdown actually helped the suspect. link
posted by delmoi at 1:15 AM on April 20, 2013 [3 favorites]


Again, I have to disagree with you whether it's amateur hour or not doesn't matter. Everyone should discuss questions of right and wrong and what the nature of evil is and how it forms and propagates, on individual level or within a group, or a whole culture.

What I agree is that maybe it would be more effective to keep the conversation more grounded in this particular situation, but even then it's important to try and see patterns and universal aspects of perpetrating pre-meditated generalized horror and violence.

The lockdown was a fucking insane thing that I can't even believe how unquestioningly it was put in place and the citizenry turned into docile cowering sheep afraid to leave their homes. It is going to cause a recoil in disgust that is going to be massive on both sides of the political spectrum. This is a watershed event that should finally show everyone what the true cost of all this post-911 deification and expansion of the law enforcement complex in this country has given birth too. It's sadly going to be a rallying point for all sorts of insane extremists as well. But, it was wrong and pathetic, and frankly disgusting for Boston to shut everything down the way it did. And to allow the streets to be inhabited in such a such a way only by paramilitary teams and soldiers.

And yeah, it was only after the lockdown was lifted that the tip came in from the owner of the boat.

My mind hurts just thinking about the fallout from all this...(but that also just might be cause it's so late here...)



=
posted by Skygazer at 1:38 AM on April 20, 2013 [2 favorites]


"pseudo-philosophical" ... "amateur hour"

That's uncalled-for. And untrue. I don't think anyone in this exchange is a professional philosopher, so that part is technically true, but I know for a fact that some have spent years formally studying philosophy.

But that's beside the point, really. Your basic point is reasonable, and I partly agree with it in that it's not a resolvable issue and, beyond some point, it becomes a distraction to what most people want to discuss in this thread. But you, yourself have spent a decade on MetaFilter writing at length on technical matters of which aren't your profession or, indeed, on which you have any formal education. And that's okay, as long as its reasonably informed. That's well within community norms.

If disparaging, insulting terms like "amateur hour", "pseudo-philosophical" (or the closely related "pseudo-intellectual") were acceptable here, which I don't really think they are, they'd apply to three-quarters of all discussion and among that you, delmoi, would be featured prominently.
posted by Ivan Fyodorovich at 2:03 AM on April 20, 2013 [3 favorites]


I'd rather follow the thread to find out more about the case then random pseudo-philosophical speculation about the nature of human maliciousness. It's not like the question is going to get resolved.

Still, it's more interesting to me than unfolding news, especially now that the news is effectively over now until the legal proceedings get under way.

We've had a few thousand comments of "hey, somebody said something on twitter or a police scanner". You've had your fun already. Now, how about some pseudo-philosophical chat for those of us who don't happen to share your apparent Myers-Briggs "S" preference?
posted by UbuRoivas at 2:04 AM on April 20, 2013


Everyone should discuss questions of right and wrong and what the nature of evil is and how it forms and propagates, on individual level or within a group, or a whole culture.
Nothing is preventing you from finding some interesting links about and posting an FPP. Talking about this specific case and the... malignancy... of his intentions is one thing (although entirely speculative at this point). A general discussion about "evil" is just going to fill the thread up with noise, when it would be more useful to keep the thread clear for updates to this case, which are obviously going to come in the future.
they'd apply to three-quarters of all discussion and among that you, delmoi, would be featured prominently.
That might be interesting but my posting history even less germane to the topic at hand :P

(Obviously I'm not a mod, I can't actually stop you from posting whatever you want. I just think it would be better to post actual information and discussion about this case in this thread)
posted by delmoi at 2:18 AM on April 20, 2013


I know for a fact that some have spent years formally studying philosophy.

Ooh, I resemble that comment. And sociology too, for whatever that's worth, and the sociological aspect of these events happen to be more interesting to me than the philosophical side, but only slightly more.
posted by UbuRoivas at 2:19 AM on April 20, 2013


A couple of severely disturbed brothers shut down an entire city and dare I say the entire country for two days, three people are dead, and hundreds are traumatized/injured. We've become accustomed to violence and expect the police to ask this way, for suspects to be beaten into submission and for the process to be subverted.

Actually, I think the reason why the two succeeded at shutting down the entire city/country is precisely because we are not accustomed to violence. Different to many other places in the world, random violence is a comparatively rare thing in the US, even when taking all those school massacres and random shootings into account.

It is scary, because it is outside of our control. I bet if you did a statistical analysis, you would find that the risk for an American to die in a terrorist attack like the one in Boston is 1000 times smaller than the risk to die when crossing the street or climbing a ladder or drinking too much alcohol. Yet those things seem to be under our control: If you fall off a ladder, it was probably your own fault. Whereas there is really nothing you can do to protect yourself against some lunatic with a homemade bomb.

So in the coming weeks there will be lots of proposals to prevent similar attacks in the future, such as more surveillance cameras, tighter immigration control, looking for sleepers through analysis of social media sites etc. That's only natural, the natural desire to keep things under control. But none of the measures that will be proposed would have prevented the attack in the first place. Unfortunately, there is also big potential for the whole discussion being hijacked by groups having their own agenda.
posted by sour cream at 2:24 AM on April 20, 2013 [4 favorites]


Nothing is preventing you from finding some interesting links about and posting an FPP.

People have been making this kind of point a lot recently.

"I don't think what you're talking about fits what I think the thread should be about...go and start another one & talk about it there!"

Seriously, WTF? Why is everybody a "start your own thread" Nazi these days?
posted by UbuRoivas at 2:25 AM on April 20, 2013 [2 favorites]


Mod note: It's okay to talk about philosophical/sociological aspects now that there's really not that much news streaming in, better if it's more closely related to this event, and much worse when it's just squabbling about what's okay to talk about. If we have to open a Metatalk to discuss that, we will, but it would be much cooler if people would all be a little flexible here.
posted by taz (staff) at 2:27 AM on April 20, 2013


[will demonstrate flexibility by putting lil ubu to bed, so the thread can get back towards concrete facts (or rumours approximating concrete facts as the case may be) if that's the way people want to take it]
posted by UbuRoivas at 2:31 AM on April 20, 2013


It was deemed inappropriate while the events were unfolding. When does it become ok to contextualize these events from global perspective, given this is a global site with international membership?
After they've taken Prague?
posted by fullerine at 2:34 AM on April 20, 2013 [2 favorites]


The lockdown was a fucking insane thing that I can't even believe how unquestioningly it was put in place and the citizenry turned into docile cowering sheep afraid to leave their homes. It is going to cause a recoil in disgust that is going to be massive on both sides of the political spectrum.

That's a terrible misread of where the american public are. People applauded the cops when it was over. They'll continue to applaud.
posted by empath at 2:50 AM on April 20, 2013 [8 favorites]


So I haven't been blue to find news of what's going on with Dzhokhar. Is he still in serious condition? I assume he's not dead or someone would have mentioned it.
posted by Elementary Penguin at 2:54 AM on April 20, 2013


Wow. "blue" should be "able". Slightly hungover.
posted by Elementary Penguin at 3:01 AM on April 20, 2013


I know for a fact that some have spent years formally studying philosophy.

Fuck, I have degree in it, but I don't really think I need to flash it about to satisfy Delmoi's very exacting strict presumptuous obnoxious standards as to who's qualified to discuss matters of Good/Evil.

It's beside the point. There're are lot of questions that are unresolvable or unknowable, but the point isn't to resolve such things anyway, it's to take what such an things teach us or illuminate in order to help to better deal with those things that are, indeed, resolvable or knowable or more pragmatic. It's a process, not an end unto itself. To think philosophy is about resolution or a goal is the veritable high noon of "amateur hour."
posted by Skygazer at 3:02 AM on April 20, 2013 [3 favorites]


The lockdown was a fucking insane thing that I can't even believe how unquestioningly it was put in place and the citizenry turned into docile cowering sheep afraid to leave their homes. It is going to cause a recoil in disgust that is going to be massive on both sides of the political spectrum.

Wow, no, not at all.
When there is someone literally ON YOUR STREET with weapons and explosives and has killed many people already with absolutely NOTHING left to lose, you say, please police, please clear my dwelling and hang around in my backyard. That felt, absolutely like the right thing to do. I did not want to be wandering around the streets of my town, and if I was in a neighboring town, I probably wouldn't even want to be out and about there either.
posted by bobobox at 3:04 AM on April 20, 2013 [21 favorites]


MetaFilter: the veritable high noon of "amateur hour."

(where 'amateur' means, of course, doing it for the love of it)
posted by UbuRoivas at 3:09 AM on April 20, 2013 [7 favorites]


Let me say very clearly, from inside the "warzone," that the lockdown was absolutely the right thing to do - even across the entire city of Boston. Huge swaths of Cambridge and Watertown were active crime scenes. At every point on the crime map, I knew someone affected: MIT- yes, car jacking- yes, Central Sq.- yes, Tamerlan's apartment- yes, Memorial Dr.- yes, Watertown- yes. Boston proper and all the other areas mentioned, Allston/Brighton etc, are just a quick stroll over a bridge.

If he had slipped the noose- and he had, just barely- he could have hopped on public transportation or taken a cab, never to be seen again. Which would have been a nightmare. Better one day of lockdown. And, the lockdown was lifted at a reasonable point. They could have tried to hold the city hostage longer: they did not.

I am not typically a government yes man. I was pretty pleased with the way this was handled.
posted by bobobox at 3:24 AM on April 20, 2013 [17 favorites]


Empath: That's a terrible misread of where the american public are. People applauded the cops when it was over. They'll continue to applaud.

Well than they need to be educated in the idea of what it means to live in a democracy that values freedom of movement and interaction, and a law of and for the people established by the people.

That felt, absolutely like the right thing to do. I did not want to be wandering around the streets of my town, and if I was in a neighboring town, I probably wouldn't even want to be out and about there either.

Fine, but a city shouldn't come to a halt and give itself up to defacto martial law and shut itself down.

And it shouldn't create an exclusive "hero class" of law enforcement people who're simply doing their jobs.
posted by Skygazer at 3:28 AM on April 20, 2013 [3 favorites]


The last 48 hours have seemed unreal to me, like watching scenes from a bad movie play out in real life.

I don't get the comments contrasting the ideal of having compassion even for those who seek to indiscriminately kill civilians with a belief that humans can do evil. Calling behavior evil isn't "othering" that prevents compassion and understanding if one believes we are all capable of evil.
posted by Area Man at 3:28 AM on April 20, 2013


bobobox: I'm genuinely curious & not trying to be snarky: the US has a phenomenally high murder rate. Every day, on average, 41 people are murdered. Given that the death rate from the bombings, plus the killed police officer, is 10% of the national daily tally, or 2/100ths of a percent of the yearly tally, why is it that a lockdown is felt to be the right thing to do here, and not for all these other murders?
posted by UbuRoivas at 3:40 AM on April 20, 2013 [2 favorites]


Being that it is a democracy and the majority involved approved of the way they handled things, I don't even see why this is an issue. Either you believe that majority rules or you just really want to stir the pot when you're not even in the kitchen.
posted by Malice at 3:40 AM on April 20, 2013 [1 favorite]


Was that an answer to me? Was there some sort of plebiscite that established that the majority of people felt a lockdown was appropriate? Obviously, the decision wasn't made democratically, so "majority rules" doesn't exactly apply here.

The broader question, though, remains the same: proportionally, this was a drop in the ocean of violence in America, and yet a whole city was shut down over it. Why exactly the seemingly (to me, at least) disproportionate response?

It's not a challenge to justify it; I just want to know why people think it's an OK response. I'd be pissed off as hell if I was told to stay locked in my house because a miscreant on the run was on the run. Or even a dozen of them. Is there something I'm missing here, like is Boston 4 blocks by 5 blocks or something?
posted by UbuRoivas at 3:50 AM on April 20, 2013


Ubu: I probably shouldn't even speak to this cause I am no expert at all but I'll give it a go. Most murders are pretty pointed and personal. You go about solving those ones differently. They kill the person they were aiming to kill and other people are not necessarily at risk. In this case, you have a couple of people killing willy-nilly aiming not just to kill but to maim. Please don't forget the bombs were designed to, and did, injure over a hundred people. Sure, only a few people died, but many people lost limbs. I wonder how many amputations were performed... And that's just the tip of the iceberg on how this case was different than others.
posted by bobobox at 3:52 AM on April 20, 2013 [8 favorites]


Why exactly the seemingly (to me, at least) disproportionate response? '

None of the victims could be blamed for the crime. You get shot in a drug deal, it's your fault for being involved in the trade. You get stabbed by your spouse, it's your fault for staying with an abusive person. You get clipped in a fatal hit and run? Shouldn't have been on the road. If you're a "proper" person behaving in a "proper" manner, you can avoid death, right? Not entirely true, but a pretty solid narrative.

But the casualties from this? Nothing to pin on them. That means the narrative has failed, and you could be next. Lockdown, call the feds.
posted by Jilder at 3:54 AM on April 20, 2013 [4 favorites]


bobobox, thanks, I appreciate your explanation. Sorry for stirring the pot but I really was just curious. It seemed quite unprecedented.
posted by UbuRoivas at 3:54 AM on April 20, 2013


I figured they were worried about more devices, and needed to a) keep large contained vulnerable groups (schools, transit, etc.) safe, b) look and see if they could find more bombs, and c) try to get the guys to see if they would say if there were more devices.
posted by taz at 3:55 AM on April 20, 2013 [3 favorites]


Oh, yes, they were righteously worried about more explosives. There were more- pressure cooker and pipe bombs that they were actively throwing out of the car as they were fleeing. Maybe I'm just cautious, but I'm super super glad they were so careful about clearing out the apartment where the explosives may have been made (in a neighborhood where I know people who live there). And careful about hunting a person who may have explosives on them (in my own neighborhood).

This is not at all just about a death count.
posted by bobobox at 4:10 AM on April 20, 2013 [1 favorite]


They didn't know how many people were involved, how many devices were implanted, and so on. This isn't you every day crime spree, this could have been anything from a columbine situation to a 9/11 situation. And lest we forget, they were still actively attempting to murder people. This wasn't even a situation like in LA where he was gunning for mostly cops. These kids were trying to kill as many people as they could.
posted by empath at 4:10 AM on April 20, 2013 [3 favorites]


I would say if anyone found themselves gloating about something miserable happening to someone else--that's a pretty good sign your empathy gland needs to be rebooted. It's in many ways a natural reaction, but it's a base one.

For those who may have been in a state of high emotion from having been through an incredibly scary week, I think we can forgive such a reaction, no?

I've been reading the back-and-forth on the nature of "evil" here and on how just calling them "evil" is dismissive; my only concern is that I've often seen people's attempt to "understand" a perpetrator's motives get as far as discovering their religion and then stopping there. "Well, they're [insert religion here], that explains it." That is equally as dismissive to my mind. It's not happened recently in this thread, but I've read an awful lot of speculation about just how Muslim the brothers were as if their religion was the only nuance to their motives. It isn't.

....For those interested - my local NPR station is now running "On the Media" now, and not surprisingly it is all about the coverage this week - and it is goooooood.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 4:15 AM on April 20, 2013 [1 favorite]


koeselitz: That sounds like backtracking to me. Did you really think anyone would argue in favor of the value of uncritical compassion? That modifier changes it a bit, doesn't it?

When I said "uncritical" I meant the idea that everybody deserves compassion.
posted by BobbyVan at 4:25 AM on April 20, 2013


Pretty embarrassing showing for Boston in this manhunt I have to say. Good thing they lifted their "LOCKDOWN" so someone could leave his house and accidentally find the suspect in his backyard while the cops searched "just outside the area all day" according to the NYTimes. Hahaha! Really pathetic.

No, the lockdown was incredibly effective. Dzhokhar was unable to get on a bus, the subway system or even do a carjacking to get out of town. The only thing he could do was hide in someone's backyard in a boat.

There are plenty of lessons to be learned from this lockdown along with lots of philosophical and legal questions to be asked. But make no mistake, the lockdown was extremely effective and preventing Dzhokhar from easily fleeing.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 4:30 AM on April 20, 2013 [30 favorites]


bigZLiLk: "On the same day as the marathon, over 50 people were killed by car bombs in Iraq and over 80 in the past week. The perpetrators of these acts are not insane, if anything the world is insane, and they're simply expressing their frustration with that world."

Wow. I'm actually shocked anyone really believes this, and dismayed at the favorites on this comment. This sentiment is not just morally obtuse. It's depraved.
posted by BobbyVan at 4:30 AM on April 20, 2013 [6 favorites]


why is it that a lockdown is felt to be the right thing to do here, and not for all these other murders?

A perfectly valid question, I think. The main answer is that in the vast majority of homicides, there's no immediate danger of further murders. There's obviously some danger to the public at large, but since most murders have a proximate cause, they're not immediately followed by more killing. In this case, not only did you have suspects who evidenced a total disregard for children and innocents in general, they had just murdered a police officer in cold blood and tossed bombs indiscriminately. The chances were extremely high that another pursuit could take place, this time in the middle of the work day on streets crowded with traffic and pedestrians.
posted by Banky_Edwards at 4:36 AM on April 20, 2013 [5 favorites]


I've been reading the back-and-forth on the nature of "evil" here...

Save yourself and ignore it. That discussion is incredibly tedious and boring.

Given that the death rate from the bombings, plus the killed police officer, is 10% of the national daily tally, or 2/100ths of a percent of the yearly tally, why is it that a lockdown is felt to be the right thing to do here, and not for all these other murders?

C'mon, think it through. From a practical standpoint, they literally can't afford to do this for every murder, as shutting down businesses while the police force is on overtime isn't sustainable.

Add in the fact that these guys had a proven history of trying to kill as many people as possible, were throwing bombs at police during gun battles and no one knew what other explosives they had or where Dzhokhar was and it makes sense lock down the city.

Keep in mind that police do "lockdowns" on smaller scales all the time. If a known killer is holed up in a building on a downtown street, they clear the street, close the businesses on the street and cordon off the area. This was simply a lockdown on more massive scale for a an extremely dangerous assailant whereabouts were only generally guessed at.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 4:45 AM on April 20, 2013 [6 favorites]


I'm just amazed (and thankful) that Dzhokhar only got a mile away from the shootout. I spent most of the afternoon worried he was long gone. Also, everything bobobox said.
posted by Elementary Penguin at 4:49 AM on April 20, 2013 [2 favorites]


3 held in Bedford.

Dzohar went back to college and "He was regular; he was calm.".

So this guy is a cold hearted psycho who can murder women and a child and maim a couple of hundred and act as though nothing is wrong, and mefi gets on its usual comapssion-a-thon. No comapssion here, he is a murderer. Hope he gets life and rots in jail for 85 years.
posted by marienbad at 5:01 AM on April 20, 2013 [1 favorite]


The lockdown was extreme, but it served a purpose that was clearly defined and restrictions were lifted in a very reasonable amount of time. While martial law (to whatever degree this qualified as that) is a frightening harbinger, in this case those persons in charge utilized the authority to narrow the possibility of the perpetrator’s escape routes and in the end, achieving the goal of finding the suspect.

I have seen some arguments that the forcing of people inside their homes allowed the suspect to move more freely about without being spotted doing so. While this may be true to a degree, at the same time that itself was shown not to be a guarantee that he could have escaped. In fact, that he ended up in someone’s yard and messed with their property, was exactly the correct tell-tale sign produced due to the lock-down, not in spite of it. The suspect was forced to go to a place where he could not blend in and in doing so, pointed up his presence.
posted by lampshade at 5:03 AM on April 20, 2013 [5 favorites]


Do we even know how long he was in the boat? I know my wife and I spent most of the day looking nervously out our windows, afraid we'd see him, and I can't imagine we were the only ones. If he moved to the boat in daylight, I'm surprised no one saw him, even with the lockdown.
posted by Elementary Penguin at 5:10 AM on April 20, 2013


When you start talking about withholding medical care or how a person should be killed or whatever other awful things you can imagine for that person, you don't say something about what kind of person he is, you say something about what kind of person you aren't.

There are a lot of responses to this that could make us collectively lesser people. Not that it would make us all monsters, but it would make us less. I don't want those responses, because I think that humanity deserves is better than that, not because I think that the individual here has earned any compassion. Compassion doesn't mean much if you offer it only to the people you already like.
posted by Sequence at 5:12 AM on April 20, 2013 [39 favorites]


Sequence, what you say is true under normal circumstances. But I'm still going to give anyone who may have been recovering from injury themselves a temporary pass if they say things like this; I mean, we all say things we don't mean when we're angry (that is human nature too), because that anger has to be expressed and it's not fair to deny someone that chance.

You say that imagining awful things for the bomber says something about what kind of person you aren't - in the case of a victim of the bombing, it looks to me that the "kind of person they aren't" is "healthy and well."
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 5:22 AM on April 20, 2013 [2 favorites]




mefi gets on its usual compassion-a-thon

I want all the rules to be followed and don't actively wish for harm to be done. I am open to the possibility that he acted in cold blood, as well as the possibility that he didn't fully know what he was doing, as well as the possibility of both. Would you call me compassionate?
posted by zennie at 5:40 AM on April 20, 2013 [8 favorites]


Wow, the guy who got his leg blown off (the one saved by carlos arredondo) doesn't have health insurance. He's apparently one of the 1.9% in MA who doesn't have it. He's apparently taking donations online to cover medical care.
posted by delmoi at 5:42 AM on April 20, 2013 [3 favorites]


I'm not familiar with the site so I'm having difficulty finding anything there -- but is there a Reddit thread that is posting updates, links, and commentary, and isn't mostly competing lectures about the semantics of compassion and evil?
posted by (Arsenio) Hall and (Warren) Oates at 5:44 AM on April 20, 2013 [2 favorites]




In Waltham, we were not "told" to stay indoors by the city, but "urged" to. I walked to work and got some work done, but left the store closed. I walked past a bar that was open, a supermarket that was open, a gas station that was open, and a dunkin donuts that was not only open but had a full parking lot as usual.

It's my understanding that in Watertown, there was specifically a ban on car travel, but there was approximately 20% of usual traffic in Waltham.

I think that watching and reading the media's descriptions of yesterday, especially the overuse of the word "lockdown" might lead to an exaggerated view of the situtation.
posted by helicomatic at 5:46 AM on April 20, 2013 [15 favorites]


The lockdown was a fucking insane thing that I can't even believe how unquestioningly it was put in place and the citizenry turned into docile cowering sheep afraid to leave their homes. It is going to cause a recoil in disgust that is going to be massive on both sides of the political spectrum.

It sounds like you're painting this whole situation with a People Are Just Sheeple To The Government brush you handily picked out of your stash of Down With The Man! brushes. And it's bullshit. There are plenty of Boston residents that were active in this thread -- maybe ask them (or hell, go back and read some of their thoughts about this -- like helicomatic's right up there) before getting all ragey? I listened to the scanner for two solid days and I ignored work and life to stay up to date on this and while I'm all about calling out the cops and people in general when rights are usurped and lines are crossed, I didn't see that happening here. By all accounts the Boston PD was effective and professional and they did what they were allowed, within the law, to stop a madman. They accomplished what we pay them to accomplish and amazingly, the did it with minimal loss of life. We can quibble about how many lives were saved I guess but I think it's clear had they handled it like the animals you seem to think they are, the loss of innocent life would have been greater.

It didn't turn the residents of Boston in cowering sheep, it empowered them and gave them a hand in assisting police and finding the man that murdered some of their very own. After all I've read, it seems many Bostonians agree with me. It shows that when you ask and let the people help, they will. Case in point: Tsarnaev was essentially located by a regular ol' citizen.

I don't think this sets some precedent and that LE are now going to lockdown entire cities just because they can or because cops are on some power trip. I think this shows that martial law (the very definition of which states it is used "over designated regions on an emergency basis") was necessary and contributed to ending a manhunt pretty quickly given the scope of said hunt and the size of Boston.

I bet you can find a few over at freerepublic or some such place that agree with you, though.
posted by youandiandaflame at 5:48 AM on April 20, 2013 [38 favorites]


So how drunk did the city get last night?
posted by Renoroc at 5:48 AM on April 20, 2013


So how drunk did the city get last night?

Wicked pissed.
posted by zombieflanders at 5:50 AM on April 20, 2013 [19 favorites]


Bauman has health insurance, it says so in your linked article, delmoi (to be fair, maybe it was updated in the last nine minutes).
posted by desjardins at 5:52 AM on April 20, 2013


And there are the followers, (the 19 hijackers of 9/11, the nazi's following orders, the Squiggy Fromms and the younger brother in this situation), who give themselves over to this greater and seductive and driven charismatic figure, who allows them to completely turn off their own need to be responsible for themselves[my bold]

Heh. Have you been watching LaVerne and Shirley? It's funny that Squeaky Fromme popped into my head as well. I suppose because I was thinking about the nature of evil and how often it is merely the outcome of circumstances. Had Lynette Fromme not met Charles Manson, who knows? She might have gone on to live an ordinary life-- housewife, mother, grandmother. Instead she tried to assassinate a president.

Remember that Saudi National who was running away from the scene, wounded? Only to be be taken into custody for questioning? Michelle Obama visited him in hospital according to a Saudi News Site.

And speaking of the innocent, the LA Times has an article this morning on "Boston Bombings: Social Media Spirals Out of Control
"This is one of the most alarming social media events of our time," said Siva Vaidhyanathan, a media studies professor at the University of Virginia. "We're really good at uploading images and unleashing amateurs, but we're not good with the social norms that would protect the innocent."
posted by Secret Life of Gravy at 5:59 AM on April 20, 2013 [1 favorite]


Ah, it used to say:
The 27-year-old’s story is particularly tragic considering that he lives in Massachusetts, the state that gave birth to Obamacare and has the lowest uninsurance rate in the country. Unfortunately, Bauman — who worked part-time at Costco and was planning on going back to school — is one of the mere 1.9 percent of Massachusetts residents without health coverage. He likely would have gained insurance under his school’s health plan had he made it there before the bombings.
Still having "health insurance" does not mean you are going to have all the expenses related to having your legs blown off covered.
posted by delmoi at 6:00 AM on April 20, 2013 [1 favorite]


Elementary Penguin, I've been wondering the same thing. He had many hours, at least 4 under cover of darkness, to flee but he was scared into hiding a very short distance from the shoot out. He ended up only a 15 minute walk away! I'd bet he holed up pretty early. I doubt he was wandering around much at all once he knew the search was on full force. We could hear the helicopters circling all day, and I'm sure he could, too.

youandiandaflame, thank you, I agree.
posted by bobobox at 6:01 AM on April 20, 2013 [1 favorite]


Still having "health insurance" does not mean you are going to have all the expenses related to having your legs blown off covered.

As soon as people started talking about the amazing prosthesis that are being built and how he might run again some day, I (sad to say) wondered if his insurance would cover anything more than the cheapest, most basic care. I mean what are we talking about for something like what Oscar Pistorius has? A million per leg?
posted by Secret Life of Gravy at 6:08 AM on April 20, 2013


These kids were trying to kill as many people as they could.

Has anybody heard any update/confirmation/description of the person they car-jacked and then let go after about an hour? Letting someone go more-or-less unharmed seems another puzzling detail in this puzzling thing.
posted by 0 at 6:12 AM on April 20, 2013


"Case in point: Tsarnaev was essentially located by a regular ol' citizen."

I think this is a great point to expand on. I'd like to know if the event photos that led to the bombers' ID were gleaned from a corpus of citizen photography or from CCTV/LEO data. I wouldn't mind seeing the strength of event-specific, crowd-sourced surveillance make the argument for always-on law enforcement surveillance weaker.
posted by klarck at 6:19 AM on April 20, 2013 [1 favorite]


The Blaze: Who's Who in the Alleged Boston Family and How They Are Responding? Here's What We Know So Far

I'm not familiar with the site so I'm having difficulty finding anything there -- but is there a Reddit thread that is posting updates, links, and commentary, and isn't mostly competing lectures about the semantics of compassion and evil?

Try this thread. It's the latest live thread with links for everything you need.
posted by Secret Life of Gravy at 6:22 AM on April 20, 2013 [1 favorite]


Err, I guess I coulda googled my own description before posting.
posted by 0 at 6:30 AM on April 20, 2013


The lockdown was a fucking insane thing that I can't even believe how unquestioningly it was put in place and the citizenry turned into docile cowering sheep afraid to leave their homes.

You ever catch a Red Sox game at Fenway on TV? Ever see what the crowd is like when a pitcher goes into the wind-up and it's 4-3 on the last out of the inning in a close game?

Silence. No cheers or jeers, just quiet anticipation. They don't want to screw this up, they're fans of the game. Boston's a big sports town, true, but they're also a smart sports town. They believe in the power of the Tenth Man.

This week, Boston was rooting for the capture of the bombers, and when it came time for the citizens of the city to do their part, it wasn't out of blind acquiescence or fear.

It was with the attitude of, "Have at it, and get the fuckers. We're on the same team."

I know a lot of people in Boston. None of them are liable to do as they're told, none of them are particularly fearful, and their attitude throughout the day was, "Go Boston!"

Teamwork is a pretty strong community value there.
posted by Slap*Happy at 6:32 AM on April 20, 2013 [28 favorites]


But I'm still going to give anyone who may have been recovering from injury themselves a temporary pass if they say things like this.

The thoughts and expressions of those directly affected are one thing, and I too would offer leeway there. However, I think it is important to offer a countering view to those who advocate torturing Tsarnaev, such as by withholding painkillers, or support the violation of his other rights under the Constitution.
posted by audi alteram partem at 6:36 AM on April 20, 2013 [1 favorite]


My apologies if this has already been posted:
Boston Bomb Suspect Was Under FBI Surveillance, Mother Says
posted by Joe in Australia at 6:37 AM on April 20, 2013


This is fucking unreal. Like, how long until the movie comes out? Jesus. I just can't even.
posted by windykites at 6:41 AM on April 20, 2013 [2 favorites]


I guess we should count our blessings that they learned everything they know about exit strategy from Donald Rumsfeld.
posted by Pogo_Fuzzybutt at 6:42 AM on April 20, 2013 [2 favorites]


Why exactly the seemingly (to me, at least) disproportionate response?

It's not a challenge to justify it; I just want to know why people think it's an OK response. I'd be pissed off as hell if I was told to stay locked in my house because a miscreant on the run


anyone confront you with being a troll. a bad one at that. OHHHH The Port Arthur Massacre...would you care to explain the "severe" fall-out from that? Would you like to compare and contrast?

FUCK yeah Boston. I have not seen strength like that in years.
posted by clavdivs at 6:49 AM on April 20, 2013


IANAL: Are Miranda rights subject to take-backsies?

I know this is a joke, but the more common method is to never-givesies and then find a loophole to keep the evidence in.


Senator Lindsey Graham Says Suspend the Constitution For Boston Marathon Suspect And Designate Him An Enemy Combatant

See, we don't even need a trial!
posted by cjorgensen at 6:51 AM on April 20, 2013


Still having "health insurance" does not mean you are going to have all the expenses related to having your legs blown off covered.

Insured or not, I thought the $300,000 Bucks for Bauman figure was naively optimistic or possibly just naive. I'm pretty sure adding another 0 to that number is going to be more accurate. Anything I know about this I know from similarly injured soldiers, but he's looking at a billing pathway from surgery, intensive care, and standard hospital to a rehab facility stay and that could be maybe 18 months before he goes home to start outpatient rehab. Add on to that the cost of the prosthetics (probably multiple ones as his rehab progresses), and Walter Reed estimates the 5 year cost at over $500,000 over 5 years just in billing, and that's through the uber-efficient VA. Treatment at a non-military trauma center can hit $30K for emergency treatment before you even get to surgery or any kind of recovery.

Add to that Bauman's overheads for food, clothing, shelter, and modified transport when he finally starts rehabbing as an out patient, and the fact that this kind of rehab is in and of itself a full time job stretching through years. Seriously, $3 million seems like a sound guess to me.
posted by DarlingBri at 6:55 AM on April 20, 2013 [2 favorites]


The lockdown was a fucking insane thing that I can't even believe how unquestioningly it was put in place and the citizenry turned into docile cowering sheep afraid to leave their homes.

Not from Boston, but have plenty of friends who live there now. Uniformly, there is a broad understanding that the "lockdown" (technically a "shelter in place request") for the vast majority of people (pretty much excluding Watertown) was a request from the police, not an order. It may or may not help that similar requests come out whenever there is severe weather. It also helped that there really wasn't anywhere to go. (For instance, I have one friend who had a custody hearing scheduled in Cambridge scheduled yesterday. The hearing was canceled, but he noted that had it not been canceled he would have risked being shot to be there.)

There's a quote in the Globe today to the effect of "this was something I could do to help the police, and I was happy to do it."

What's interesting is that the real conversation that is taking place (at least on my FB page, and I assume in other places) is about the house to house search, the legalities of it, what would have happened had anyone said no, what would have happened had the police found some egregious unrelated crime during the course of the search (I believe the example of "child held prisoner in the basement was bandied about), possible trauma to children (and others) as a result of having armed SWAT teams searching your house, and, in general, a big conversation about what your rights are in that situation vs. the police's rights.

Folks are assuming they had a judge on the phone who was willing to issue warrants as needed/requested, but with only the very flimsiest of "probably cause" that's yet another issue.

Bear in mind also that most of the folks I know who are having his conversation are Cambridge Liberals, not so much your average tea party types. So, factor that in.
posted by anastasiav at 6:56 AM on April 20, 2013 [4 favorites]


anyone confront you with being a troll. a bad one at that. OHHHH The Port Arthur Massacre...would you care to explain the "severe" fall-out from that?

I don't think you can compare the two.
Really.
In Port Arthur, which is a tiny town, they knew where the gunman was most of the time.
Boston's a bigger city, and they didn't know, specifically, where he was.
posted by Mezentian at 6:58 AM on April 20, 2013 [2 favorites]


In 2001 I was working for a research engineering firm on the 128 loop in MA. While we designed equipment for many different businesses, we were predominantly a defense subcontractor. A few weeks after 9/11 the company I worked for sent several of us as volunteers to use our gear to assist with certain aspects of the recovery process. If I were forced to pick a single turning point in my life, that trip and the subsequent fallout led me to leave engineering and take up cooking. There was a lot of other stuff, but I can clearly state - that what I bore witness to will haunt me.

My biggest problem with 9/11 was there was no closure; there was just carnage. I felt Iraq was just lashing out irresponsibly. I never felt the evidence about the Taliban was disclosed to a point where I felt comfortable engaging into war there; however, it was nor is it ever reasonable that I should expect to be briefed enough on a given event to agree with a war. There are numerous aspects of National Security I agree with. With that said though, I felt that our response was counterproductive to any efforts to alleviate the roots of terrorism. As soon as we committed troops to any sort of retaliatory action, my heart sank and my support for Government sank, despite my recognition that the troops needed our support to win what I will still call an unwinnable war. The war we faced and arguably still face is more akin to Vietnam than any similar conflict in that we are facing an ideology, and pushing such a war galvanizes that ideology more so.

I grew up with the strong memory of my father, a great man in my mind, lying on our bathroom floor crying his eyes out and saying that he was going to hell over his forced participation in Vietnam, despite that he was a medic and saved numerous lives while there. It was perhaps the only event that he may have ever suffered from PTSD that he ever let slip. I will never forget the subsequent confusing and adult emotions that were forced on me at an age probably less than 10.

The Unibomber, Columbine, Oklahoma City, Virginia Tech, Aurora, Newtown - all of these events occured with the single intention of hurting as many innocent people as possible; however, in time they all received proper closure and were contained enough that any intended symbolism by the perpetrators was lost. Maralyin Manson said it best in Bowling for Columbine when he was asked what he could say to Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris: 'I wouldn't say a single word to them I would listen to what they have to say, and that's what no one did.' Validation is what they looked for, much the same way that Palestine (as well as Israel) looks for validation of their legitimacy, and Al Qaeda looks for validation as well. Now - I'm not saying Al Qaeda is just a bunch of misunderstood kids, far from it. Listening to them isn't the end of the story - there's a respect and a conversation that needs to occur all around: They need a Sinn Fein party to their IRA (and they need it quick).

The point is: we step on toes, we ignore our own transgressions, and we as a nation do indeed push down the little guys - sometimes intentionally, but in reality most of the time its accidental. The US is like a large toddler wrecking havoc on a unchild-proofed house. Wow... that was a long preamble.

Two events happened this week. One in Boston, MA and one in West, TX. West was undeniably larger from the perspective of a loss of life, and both had approximately equal casualty counts. West was an accident - it may be from negligence - even willful negligence. However, at the end of the day, it was an accident.

Marathon Monday was not. It was intentional for a reason that we all will never fully understand. At the root of it though is the fact that we failed to sit down and listen to a voice and maybe find some common ground for us to be brothers instead of enemies.

One bomber is dead, the other is wounded. Many in the outside world will view one as a martyr, but I would give nothing more than to find DZohkar a man who can see the error in his ways and renounce his actions. Yes, we have closure to a week of fear and violence, but that would be the real closure that I hope we all truly look for.
posted by Nanukthedog at 7:06 AM on April 20, 2013 [30 favorites]



An honest question - for those appalled at the Shelter-in-place request and referring to those who respected it as sheep; take into account what was happening and tell us what would have been better. Either from the police perspective or as a strong bold citizen as yourself.

Some rules though:
1) you have a suspected murderer on the loose, who does not hesitate to kill cops, use explosvies and has shown a rather callous attitude toward human life in general.
2) you know the general area where this person is
3) you don't have forever (manpower, budget, or waiting for the next death)

If you can't tell from my tone already - I thought the authorities handled 1,2,3 rather well. But since you are complaining, please help shape the next incident on how it should be handled.
posted by fluffycreature at 7:08 AM on April 20, 2013 [8 favorites]


Skygazer, you are being completely ridiculous. Completely. When I lived in Boston, I was close enough to the bombers' apartment to hear their neighborhood erupt in cheers during the World Cup. I'm just as skeptical of police and governmental motives as anyone might want but jesus, I sure as hell wouldn't have been out wandering the streets.

My friends and family who are still there have had a tough, intense, stressful week. They welcomed a little time off, and it made it easier on those of us who love them to know for sure that they were home and safe. As I remember from going into my office at Smith Barney on 9/11/01, NO work was getting done anyway and they ended up sending us home for a WEEK while the market was closed.

And now, today, they're all rallying in Boston to go out and support local businesses who lost money being closed yesterday. These are not 'sheeple.' Your calling them that just demonstrates an abject lack of compassion for the awful week many have had.
posted by bitter-girl.com at 7:09 AM on April 20, 2013 [18 favorites]


"The whole point of Miranda is that not everyone knows their rights as a criminal suspect."

Printable, wallet-sized card from the ACLU: What To Do If You're Stopped By The Police. (PDF)
posted by Room 641-A at 7:10 AM on April 20, 2013 [4 favorites]


anyone confront you with being a troll. a bad one at that. OHHHH The Port Arthur Massacre...would you care to explain the "severe" fall-out from that? Would you like to compare and contrast?

FUCK yeah Boston. I have not seen strength like that in years.


LOL, you're either very intelligent or incredibly ignorant.

What happened after Port Arthur was a mandatory government buyback & outlawing of all assault style weapons. As a result, Australia hasn't seen a mass civilian shooting in decades.

Fast forward a couple of decades, and after dozens of elementary school kids get shot up at Sandy Hook, the US Senate doesn't have the balls to pass even the most pissweak of gun control laws.

There's some comparing & contrasting for you.

FUCK no US Senate. I have not seen a bunch of chickenshits like that in years.
posted by UbuRoivas at 7:11 AM on April 20, 2013 [14 favorites]


(that *was* a setup for a slam-dunk, wasn't it? i mean, there's no other rational explanation for bringing up port arthur at this point in time)
posted by UbuRoivas at 7:14 AM on April 20, 2013 [2 favorites]


...to believe that moving to the US as a child and living here for ten years "makes you an American". The vast majority of the people around the world don't think like that, they retain their ethnic identities when they emigrate elsewhere, and those ethnic identities are intimately connected in the modern world to national identities, for many generations, in some cases notoriously perpetually. Not all immigrants "assimilate" and not all immigrants want to assimilate...

here's an interview with benedict anderson on ethnic nationalism, re: "in-group versus out-group, empathy and othering"
EG: Tell me about that Sikh in Canada about whom you recently wrote. Wasn't he directing some kind of revolutionary movement in Khalistan through the Net?

BA: It was an accident that got me started thinking about all this. I was giving a talk in Missouri and this nice old Sikh who had been in America for many years came up to me afterwards and began telling me about his visit to a younger relative in Toronto. The man came back absolutely appalled because this relative, who is a very successful real estate operator was spending every night on the Net...

EG: Was he Indian?

BA: Well, that's the interesting thing. He is an American citizen, and I think he is profoundly attached to America. He really feels American and has relatives there. The younger relative is a Canadian citizen but it's quite clear that his Canadian citizenship meant virtually nothing to him. What he is obsessed with is Khalistan. It was at a time when assassinations and murders of all kinds were going on in the Punjab, and this guy was in contact with everybody around the world, doing all kinds of propaganda activities: sending money electronically, arranging guns, many other things. The Sikh asked this younger relative, then about 45, why he was doing this. He said, "Well actually I have such admiration for these brave young men struggling for Sikh identity and Sikh status. Their courage is amazing. We have to do what we can to help them." And so forth. The other man replied, "Well, you've got two sons, 19 and 21. When are they going back to join the struggle?" The man looked at him as though he was crazy and said "No, no, the reason we're here is that I want my sons to be safe. I want my sons to carry on the business." He saw nothing odd about this at all. The kids are also into this, maybe because they feel sort of marginal in Canada. This family is much more shall we say enthusiastic than the people who actually have to live there, for obvious reasons.

I also have a cab-driver friend in Melbourne. I was talking to him about these people in Canada, and he said, "You know it's very odd in Melbourne. I'm an absolute outcast in the Sikh community because I don't wear a turban, I'm fully shaved and I live an ordinary life. They do everything to make my life miserable." He also said that, when he returns to his home country, "It's like a normal life. There are many people who are orthodox and many who aren't. And that's that. But in this special situation in Melbourne, pressures to be ultra-ethnic are quite real, and they feel as if they are internally generated."

What the Net does in a certain way is break them out of their isolation. Sitting in downtown Melbourne nobody gives a whit about them. But on the Net, they are somebody. It's the same for people in Argentina, people in Germany, America, Japan, wherever. And it isn't just a hobby. You may think what you would like them to do is to pool their resources and coordinate.
viz. cultural identification and identity politics - "These deaths bring us abruptly face to face with the central problem posed by nationalism: what makes the shrunken imaginings of recent history (scarcely more than two centuries) generate such colossal sacrifices? I believe that the beginnings of an answer lie in the cultural roots of nationalism."

cf. gellner on nationalism

also btw Fighting the Good Fight: Fundamentalism and Religious Revival
posted by kliuless at 7:21 AM on April 20, 2013 [25 favorites]


But if that was a serious point you were trying to make, as Mezentian pointed out, Port Arthur is a tiny town. It's more of a village, in fact, if even that. A few dozen houses for people serving in cafes for the tourist trade. See, it's a historical site, not an actual working town.

There are only two cities over here (Sydney & Melbourne) and the rest of the country is a rural wasteland, populated more by wallabies & drop-bears than people. I'd be very surprised if Port Arthur comprised more than 500 human inhabitants (plus 10x wallabies & 100x drop-bears) as opposed to, I hear, one million Bostonians locked down.
posted by UbuRoivas at 7:22 AM on April 20, 2013


Bloody anecdata.
posted by KokuRyu at 7:24 AM on April 20, 2013


LOL, you're either very intelligent or incredibly ignorant.
Did you mean 'un-intelligent'?
The Blaze: Who's Who in the Alleged Boston Family and How They Are Responding? Here's What We Know So Far
The Blaze is Glenn Beck's site, btw.
posted by delmoi at 7:29 AM on April 20, 2013


Fast forward a couple of decades, and after dozens of elementary school kids get shot up at Sandy Hook, the US Senate doesn't have the balls to pass even the most pissweak of gun control laws.

I'm going to take a punt that this isn't a derail, since Port Arthur has already been brought up, as has gun control. And even if it is, this thread could use some levity and I will ride the deletion with pride, but John Oliver meets John Howard to discuss US gun control.
posted by Mezentian at 7:38 AM on April 20, 2013 [1 favorite]


Did you mean 'un-intelligent'?

No, I assumed (hoped) he was being sarcastic. I like that style of humour.

I mean, consider the responses:

(a) lock down one million people for a day & root $X Million from the economy to catch a teenager whose planned public bombing, to be honest, was an epic fail compared with what a competent terrorist would have achieved;

(versus)

(b) outlaw all military style weapons, but allow their owners to cash them in with no legal liability, with a result of no mass shooting of civilians for decades thereafter.

If you had to choose (a) or (b) as your preferred outcome to an event, which one do you think you'd prefer?
posted by UbuRoivas at 7:41 AM on April 20, 2013 [2 favorites]


youandiandaflame: "Even assuming he got the speediest trial ever and was declared guilty, he still deserves painkillers and the best medical treatment we can give him. He's a fucking human being.

And this is America, where we give exactly that regardless of who you are or what you've done, however awful. One hopes, anyway.
"

One, in particular, one in this thread, apparently *doesn't* hope, which is why this is brought up in the first place. And considering we are a small microcosm of the US (a LIBERAL microcosm in general), one shudders to think of how many multiples of one doesn't, actually, hope.
posted by symbioid at 7:49 AM on April 20, 2013


There are two cities over here (Sydney & Melbourne) and the rest of the country is a rural wasteland, populated more by wallabies & drop-bears than people...

I understand what you're trying to say, UbuRoivas, but for clarity's sake, Australia has five cities with populations over 1 million (with Brisbane's population over 2 mill and Perth not far behind). Obviously, Brisbane, Perth and Adelaide don't compare to some of the big cities in the US, but I wouldn't consider them "rural wastelands", either.
posted by Defying Gravity at 7:53 AM on April 20, 2013 [1 favorite]


David Cay Johnston on How the NRA Impeded the Boston Bombing Investigation.

The NRA's motive? Protecting the profits of the gunpowder and gun manufacturers that fund the NRA, Johnston says.

"The inability to quickly track the gunpowders in the Boston bombs is due to government policy designed and promoted by the NRA, which has found a way to transform every massacre associated with weapons into an opportunity for the munitions companies that sustain it to sell more guns, gunpowder and bullets."
posted by sacre_bleu at 7:54 AM on April 20, 2013 [6 favorites]


They didn't actually lock them down, it's just colloquial appellation people ended up using, like "the fiscal cliff" or "Obamacare". It was only a request. They weren't arresting people who violated it, as they would in a curfew (which is what it would be called if they really were forcing people to stay inside)

I think it was a bit of an over-reaction, there isn't any way this guy was going to get on a bus or a train or even a cab (IMO). But the cops were probably worried about a worst-case situation not the likely one, and there were probably a lot of people who were scared and would have preferred staying home instead of going out on the streets trying to get to work in an area where cops were getting into shootouts with terrorists.
One, in particular, one in this thread, apparently *doesn't* hope, which is why this is brought up in the first place. And considering we are a small microcosm of the US
I think that person was from Australia. I have to say the whole "I'm a mom, so I understand the desire to torture people" was something I hadn't heard before.
posted by delmoi at 7:56 AM on April 20, 2013 [4 favorites]


desjardins: "Bauman has health insurance, it says so in your linked article, delmoi (to be fair, maybe it was updated in the last nine minutes)."

Not only that it is a more damning indictment of the system, especially that last sentence:
The original version of this story stated that Jeff Bauman does not have health insurance. This is incorrect. That claim was based on a quote from Bauman’s uncle, Dale Maybury of Westford, that was cited in The Boston Globe on Thursday. Not only does Bauman have employer-sponsored health coverage through Costco — the company “is also matching donations made by colleagues at the chain’s Nashua location,” according to a more recent Globe article from Friday. Bauman is being forced to raise funds despite this assistance due to the extraordinarily high costs associated with the amount of current and ongoing care that he requires. (emphasis mine)
posted by symbioid at 7:58 AM on April 20, 2013


Now, with all these cameras focused on my face
You'd think they could see it through my skin
They're looking for evil, thinking they can trace it, but
Evil don't look like anything
Evil don't look like anything
posted by monju_bosatsu at 8:03 AM on April 20, 2013 [2 favorites]


I think that person was from Australia. I have to say the whole "I'm a mom, so I understand the desire to torture people" was something I hadn't heard before.

That was malibustacey9999, who I've met only once but who comes across as a very sweet & gentle soul; maybe slightly shy. She had come in from one of the godforsaken rural wildernesses out in the bush to escort her tweenish daughter to her first ever concert in a city populated by anything other than snakes & platypuses. Her sentiments, in my reading, are more about mama bear protectiveness than any real desire for torture:

And to further assure you that I am a cold-hearted bitch, as a mother who can't forget the photo of the 8 year old boy they killed, I hope the staff at the hospital are holding back on the painkillers.


In my unprofessional opinion, I don't think she would harm a fly, but would be more likely to offer it a cup of tea & a lamington.
posted by UbuRoivas at 8:08 AM on April 20, 2013 [4 favorites]


Bauman is being forced to raise funds despite this assistance due to the extraordinarily high costs associated with the amount of current and ongoing care that he requires.

This detail doesn't ring true. This guy is heavily medicated, almost surely being given the absolute best care available, and I just cannot see how he is being "forced" to do anything at this point. What does that "forcing" look like? Billing personnel coming to his room and saying "sorry bud, you're about to exceed your coverage, time to start fundraising if you want us to keep treating you."

I'm skeptical that the situation is as dire and heartless as this quoted passage says. Yes, his friends are raising money for him, one would expect that, but forced? I don't see proof of that.
posted by Unified Theory at 8:11 AM on April 20, 2013 [1 favorite]


I'm just surprised anyone can express confidence that they know the story well enough to be convinced of anything yet. What concrete evidence of the 19 year-old's foreknowledge and participation is there exactly? (I'm not trying to be skeptical of the official story, I'm just not sure I know what the official story is yet, there've been so many confusingly contradictory reports in the press.)
posted by saulgoodman at 8:12 AM on April 20, 2013 [2 favorites]


Being that it is a democracy and the majority involved approved of the way they handled things, I don't even see why this is an issue. Either you believe that majority rules or you just really want to stir the pot when you're not even in the kitchen.

We're a nation of laws, not of opinion polls. Or at least we used to be.
posted by one more dead town's last parade at 8:17 AM on April 20, 2013 [1 favorite]


I was admittedly frustrated when the shelter in place order was lifted and it seemed like no progress had been made. I felt incredibly unsafe and nervous at that point. However, as soon as it was revealed that the order meant that Tsarnaev was hiding in a boat all day and not potentially planting explosives, I lost whatever frustration I felt about being inside all day.

To be clear, I was frustrated for an hour between the order being lifted and Tsarnaev being found. I voluntarily complied with the shelter in place order to let the police do their jobs. I really think you have to be in the moment to know how you'd react. The feeling in Boston the past few days is that of a very wounded, very determined city. Absolutely EVERYONE'S first priority was finding the person who bombed our city. In light of that, it's not hard to see how when the Mayor issued a request to shelter in place, everyone complied.

Every single complaint I've seen about the shelter in place order has come from someone who wasn't affected by it. I have yet to see anyone in Metro Boston say it was an overreaction and we were the ones losing a day's pay and biting our fingernails over the whole thing. It was by no means martial law. No one had fears of being arrested if they did go out, people were simply willing to comply. Perhaps that's difficult for people in other places to understand, and maybe the value of teamwork has something to do with our city's sports obsession, but that's just how things are here. (And oh how this is NOT a city that blindly trusts law enforcement.)

I would have gone out this afternoon no matter what, but I'm especially proud to be able to go and support local businesses and give back to my city today. We've been through a lot and I'm proud that we worked together and that the situation resolved with Tsarnaev alive and in custody without further casualties. I can not see how that would have been possible with his having had more escape options.
posted by sonika at 8:20 AM on April 20, 2013 [42 favorites]


I had a good deal of angry posting to do, but I suppose I had better not. Anyone willing to call us "docile, cowering sheep" here in MetroBoston, however, ought to do it by name. There's a long list in this very thread of people who could hear gunshots and sirens. I'll start with me! "Countess Elena, you are a docile, cowering sheep for remaining in your apartment while all businesses were closed and paramilitary units were in the streets searching for a bomber who was rumored to have left numerous bombs in various locations in your community, instead of immediately drawing up protest signs and going to the Pit." There! Easy.

I'm very grateful, though, now that the danger is over and it is time to do so, that this is Cambridge and a place where people can be expected to argue seriously about it.
posted by Countess Elena at 8:20 AM on April 20, 2013 [35 favorites]


What concrete evidence of the 19 year-old's foreknowledge and participation is there exactly?

I don't understand how anyone could seriously ask that question at this point.

There's photos of the two carrying and dropping off the bombs, along with eye witness reports of the same, a gun battle with police, where homemade bombs were thrown and other minor details that hint at foreknowledge and participation.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 8:22 AM on April 20, 2013 [5 favorites]


It's more than a little ironic that people are on the one hand screaming about how this is an attack on America, an attack on American values, and an attack on the American way of life and on the other hand, want to suspend the American justice system and suspend civil rights by withholding drugs from someone who hasn't even been charged with anything yet, let alone found guilty of anything.

Speaking of civil liberties, the Boston PD requested people stay in their homes and requested residents allow searches, one by one. Yes there are some muddy issues here but that is a far cry from martial law.
posted by DarlingBri at 8:26 AM on April 20, 2013 [16 favorites]


Since I hit my favorite limit, I'll just second what Countess Elena said. It makes me angry to think that someone is implying that I'm a sheeple for respecting a request from law enforcement. If you, in my place, instead if staying home would have taken your toddler outside on the streets a block from the initial bombings knowing that it's possible that more explosives have been placed - well, we have very different cost/benefit analyses. And also, yes, please call me a coward to my face. I'm Bostonian, I can handle it.

If your response is "Oh, but it was ok for *you* but the order shouldn't have been made" your argument holds as much water as a leaky sieve.
posted by sonika at 8:29 AM on April 20, 2013 [26 favorites]


"Australia has five cities with populations over 1 million (with Brisbane's population over 2 mill and Perth not far behind). Obviously, Brisbane, Perth and Adelaide don't compare to some of the big cities in the US"

I dunno. I think in the US a city over 2M is a pretty big city. NY and LA won't see it that way, because they're the freakish outliers. Looking at a population list of US metropolitan statistical areas, I see that (rounded to nearest million from half-millions):
  • NY has 20M
  • LA has 13M
  • CHI has 10M
  • DFW has 7M
  • 4 with 6M
  • 2 with 5M
  • 5 with 4M
  • 6 with 3M
  • 18 with 2M
  • 20 with 1M (lower bound 900K)
Boston is in the 5M section.

I guess you might divide these into roughly powers of two:
  • 1 at 20M
  • 2 at 10-13M
  • 12 at 4-7M
  • 24 at 2-3M
  • 20 at 1M
That makes the top three clearly outliers, leaving three broad groups. Brisbane would be in the middle. Sydney and Melbourne would be in the largest group and are comparable to Boston. Four and five million are on the low end of that group.

For a reality check on big cities, though, you should look at China.

"I have to say the whole 'I'm a mom, so I understand the desire to torture people' was something I hadn't heard before."

I think it's common for parents to have elaborate revenge fantasies. Sometimes the fantasies are even about people other than their children.
posted by Ivan Fyodorovich at 8:35 AM on April 20, 2013 [2 favorites]


I wouldn't want my kids to be out and about in that situation. I wouldn't want absences from school to be unexcused. I wouldn't want people dependent on low wage jobs to face pressure or discipline from asshole bosses to come in to work.
posted by bq at 8:35 AM on April 20, 2013 [19 favorites]


That was malibustacey9999, who I've met only once but who comes across as a very sweet & gentle soul; maybe slightly shy ...
In my unprofessional opinion, I don't think she would harm a fly, but would be more likely to offer it a cup of tea & a lamington.
You do realize the irony in that you sound exactly like all of Dzhokar Tsarnaev's friends and acquaintances.

Clearly these "nice people" are all very dangerious. Obviously we need to start profiling them and keeping them under 24/7 surveillance. It's the only way to stay safe.
posted by delmoi at 8:45 AM on April 20, 2013 [1 favorite]




I have a spare ticket for today's Red Sox game. Interested Boston Mefites should shoot me a MeMail.
posted by zamboni at 8:49 AM on April 20, 2013 [3 favorites]


"On the same day as the marathon, over 50 people were killed by car bombs in Iraq and over 80 in the past week. The perpetrators of these acts are not insane, if anything the world is insane, and they're simply expressing their frustration with that world."

Wow. I'm actually shocked anyone really believes this, and dismayed at the favorites on this comment. This sentiment is not just morally obtuse. It's depraved.


It's not depraved. It's a completely banal observation. Every religion or philosophy – hell, every young child – recognizes this fact very clearly: the self is separate from the world, and therefore is in conflict with it. Yet we help to make the world, not only for ourselves but for others. Therefore, we are not only in conflict with nature: we struggle against every other human will that exists.

The way I see it, attempting to be a moral person requires you to walk a tricky balance between natural order and human will. We are self-aware, and therefore we are able to act in our own interests, for our own good; yet our actions have the capacity to harm others. The terrifying question, I think, the question without an easy answer, is: how many others do I have to care about? If the answer is "all of them", then you can very easily be paralyzed by fear and doubt. The food you eat, the technology you use, the entertainment you consume, the things you choose to talk about... all of these things require you to depend on others. And that dependance is not always mutually beneficial. Our society causes a lot of damage to a lot of different groups of people, and simply by participating in it, we exist in a system that knowingly inflicts suffering on a lot of people.

So, how many people do you care about? Your culture? But cultures come into conflict, and inflict pain upon other cultures regularly. Your state? But states are subject to the whims of their rulers, and often do wrong (avoiding the word "evil", because evil is a crude and nebulous concept). Your family? But where's the justification in privileging your flesh and blood over the rest of the world? Should you care about nobody but yourself? Clearly not. There is no correct answer; figuring out how you might best care about the world without utterly destroying yourself as a person is one of the central human struggles.

Now, I'm a relatively affluent fellow. I'm educated, I'm not entirely broke, I have a bunch of useful skills. I belong to no culture that's particularly oppressed, no social circle or faith that feels like it's in opposition to the rest of the world. Intolerance bothers me, but generally doesn't affect me; I'm a lucky guy. Others are not so lucky. Others are in utter shit, and through no fault of their own.

You can't blame them for their misfortune. You can blame others for their misfortune, blame them for not caring enough, for not being bothered by such injustice... but other people are fighting personal battles of their own. Who can say for sure whose responsibility it is to end a specific other's suffering? You can say, "It's all of our responsibility," but that requires a sacrifice from each and every person that they're not necessarily willing to give. No one person is responsible for this system, or for the suffering that it causes; we all enable it to keep going, but it is beyond any of our abilities to stop it. Perhaps it's too much to ask that somebody devote their life to trying to make it better, without any guarantee that their actions will have any consequence whatsoever. Certainly it's noble of the people who try.

The frustrating grey area that this creates is that many people suffer greatly, and can't expect an end to that suffering. It's not just personal suffering, either; often it's an entire class, an entire culture, an entire order of people put in dire circumstances at once. And the horrors won't end in their lifetimes.

So what do we say, BobbyVan, eh? Do we decide, "Oh, it's like a caste system, if you're born into depravity and misery you should just bear it with a grin your entire life"? Do we blame your everyman, your fellow who lives a decent life – not a perfect one, but not a terrible one either – for not sacrificing what little he has to help somebody else, even if it might mean his decent life becomes worse in the process? Is there somebody we can point fingers at? Or do we just shrug and say, "It's life, it's horrible, and horrible shit's gonna happen because of it"?

I don't think it's psychopathy for a person who grows up in suffering and oppression and hatred and misery to decide they want to take radical action. I think it's perfectly sane to decide that, yes, the world frustrates you, it's frustrating beyond the abilities of your lifespan to revolve, and while you don't have much power, you'll use what little you have to make some kind of impact. Maybe even an impact that, despite causing more pain and anguish, even perhaps to innocent victims, ultimately grants you or your family or your friends or your culture some measure of hope in the future. Maybe you have an awful idea of what consequences your actions will have, and all you cause is more pain and suffering, but if you're not cognizant of the futility of your behavior, can you be blamed for that either?

I don't think the answer is "no", necessarily; I also think such horrible actions are horrible no matter what the reason for their origins. But when horrible things happen, I don't just blame their apparent actors. It would be madness to do that. It might even be evil, for by condemning somebody else I attempt to deny my own culpability in the world which led to such a terrible crime. I still believe in justice; I still believe that the person who commits a horrific deed should be held responsible for their actions. But there is a place for compassion and understanding, even when the person you're feeling compassionate towards seemingly lacks faculty to be so compassionate themselves. The ability to feel empathy is a privilege, a gift, a responsibility; we have a duty to empathize to the utmost extent of our abilities, whatever that extent might be.

Sometimes there is insanity at work, sure. But if you think that insanity is the only reason for somebody to commit a crime against somebody else, you're worrisomely ignorant about the state of the world, about the injustices it causes without seemingly trying. Why should somebody show empathy or compassion or concern for others, when they've been denied it themselves? Why is it solely their blame that they grew up to be who they are, to act the way they did, in a world that we all helped make for them?

I have no idea why these two young men did this awful thing. But they are not puppets of the Devil, sent to wreak chaos entirely of their own agency. They are reacting to the world, and it is only sensible to say that perhaps they felt they were entirely sane, and that it was the world around them that was mad. And to some extent, they'd be right; to what extent is a question that nobody on this thread is qualified to answer.

(And once more, I am not forgiving them, or taking the blame off them, because ultimately they are responsible for their own behavior. But I can try to understand them, and care about why they did what they did, and care about them, and assume they are both sane and human. There but for the grace of God go we all.)
posted by Rory Marinich at 8:51 AM on April 20, 2013 [29 favorites]


"What does that 'forcing' look like? Billing personnel coming to his room and saying 'sorry bud, you're about to exceed your coverage, time to start fundraising if you want us to keep treating you.'"

Not that blunt, but I'm pretty sure that all US hospitals these days have "financial counselors" or the equivalent who come in and talk with patients/families who are going to have very large bills. And there are coverage limits. It's not difficult to exceed them. I don't know at what point a hospital won't provide care — I think that's a very ambiguous thing, probably. They won't ever do this for anything that is life-threatening, but if there's talk about an ambitious series of expensive operations and rehab and all related to this, then I'd guess that there'd be a growing sense of concern from the hospital's and physicians' accounting offices that would eventually put a brake on things. Before that happened, long before that happened, it would be made clear that plans would have to be made to find a way to pay for all this. Absent a financing plan, the treatment plan will change to accommodate the reality of what is financially possible.

I don't know the specifics for how all this works, but even with reasonably good insurance in the US, for catastrophic care involving expensive and extended treatment the question of how to pay the tens or hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars is a real issue that really and truly fundamentally affects what treatments are available.
posted by Ivan Fyodorovich at 8:51 AM on April 20, 2013 [3 favorites]


Someone above asked why the police had to search homes themselves for the suspect, rather than taking a resident's word that the home had been secured. A few minutes thinking about that idea reveals how tremendously flawed a strategy it would be:

1. If they had established a safe house, the resident could be sheltering him, so the word of that person would be useless. Sort of similarly, a resident could be being held hostage - with weaponry and/or psychologically - beyond view, and could be complying with demands their captor is not be revealed.

2. Searching is a skill and police are trained in it, whereas most of us stop practicing about the age of 10. Having encountered a lot of strange concealment strategies, the police will be better able than at least some residents to explore locations that a homeowner might never check.

3. Finally and most importantly for me, many of these sorts of "let the people do for themselves" suggestions (often emanating from individualist ideologies) are built on the assumption that all these households are what I have been calling "optimized" for lack of a better word. That the people in the homes are physically and mentally able to undertake a search. That they understand what is going on without any language or cognitive barriers. And anyone making observations about the actual residents of any settled area can immediately see that not all those skills/abilities are in place in every household.

Everyone is all "I don't understand how they could do it!??!" when they never say the same thing about brown-skinned Muslim terrorists. It's pretty weird.

Speak for yourself on that point, please, or at least limit your observations. I have certainly spent a lot of time wondering and reading about that.

Most murders are pretty pointed and personal.
in the vast majority of homicides, there's no immediate danger of further murders


Both of these statements are helpful to me. I have been thinking about how and why the "terror bomber at loose" situation is so much more terrifying, psychologically, than the deaths caused by the Texas disaster, the earthquake, car accidents, or just regular murder. These comments about murder made me reflect on the fact that, even though everyone who is around other humans ever is at some risk for murder, there are a lot of things many people do to minimize their risk factors for murder, whether they do them intentionally or unintentionally. They do their best to stay out of trouble, avoid dangerous people and criminal situations, break up with abusers, defuse altercations, etc. We actually have a lot of murder-avoidance skills, though I have never thought of them that way. The risk can't be eliminated but I think that most people have developed behaviors which function as protective factors against murder.So oddly, murder, though so terrible and though I recognize that there are many murders which no avoidance strategies can protect against, is a risk that people tend to feel they can, to some degree, manage and are managing daily. Though that might be an illusion in the same way that the safety of driving is an illusion, I think it is accurate that people feel a different relationship to murder risk than to random-death-by-violent-intent risk. Because nothing you do personally or socially can prevent you from being at risk from attack by violent criminals who want to harm strangers, and we know that none of our usual social protections will assist us.
posted by Miko at 9:05 AM on April 20, 2013 [2 favorites]



So this guy is a cold hearted psycho who can murder women and a child and maim a couple of hundred and act as though nothing is wrong, and mefi gets on its usual comapssion-a-thon.


I don't know if one can really say the "usual compassion-a-thon". There were several people in one of the recent election threads who expressed hope that the teenagers tweeting racist crap** about Obama be outed by name and be unable to get jobs for the rest of their lives. It is actually a strange contrast to this thread, but it's really a reminder that Metafilter is a big place, and even a dozen people in one thread are not representative of the populace in any meaningful way, only of commenters in a particular thread.


** link to my own comment in response, because I'm not here to call people out.
posted by oneirodynia at 9:13 AM on April 20, 2013 [2 favorites]


Also: it would be fucking stupid to wander the streets of Watertown while a police action was going on. You don't stay in your house because you're a sheep, you stay in it so no one, citizens included, thinks you're the suspect planting bombs. I mean, if you want to exercise your constitutional right to free movement at that time, you could probably do so. I would avoid wearing a hoodie and carrying a backpack though, lest some worthy Bostonian tackle you to the ground. Or worse.
posted by oneirodynia at 9:20 AM on April 20, 2013 [1 favorite]


I would avoid wearing a hoodie and carrying a backpack

Yet if you listened to the police scanner there were several guys that did just that.

It is perhaps the one redeeming cultural balance that maintains western civilization. Although may of our law enforcement personnel are not chosen from the very top ranks of SAT scores, the majority of their opponents are significantly lower on some scale of general functional ability. There are evil geniuses, but they are not generally criminals per se, they chose endeavors like inventing things like credit default swaps, which are not actually illegal.
posted by sammyo at 9:29 AM on April 20, 2013 [1 favorite]


I live in an apartment that is right on the Cambridge/Somerville line and work in downtown Boston. I was asleep when most of the shooting and the chaos erupted that night in Cambridge. I woke to news of a lockdown and manhunt delivered via Facebook. At the time, the T was closed but the lockdown request had not yet been issued for Boston yet. There are a few critical projects at work that were running behind so I sent a message to my teams along the lines of: "do what your conscience compels you to do. You may want to be near loved ones. You may want to do something besides listen to the news. Just give me a heads-up and we'll handle it accordingly."

I had work to do, but left my laptop in the office, so I made coffee, dressed, showered, got my bike out and took a deep breath and went outside.

The plan was to just nip into the office, get the laptop and go.

The streets were quiet, some people walking around, a few cars and trucks on their business, but it felt like a weekend morning instead of the start of rush hour. I turned on to Cambridge Street and saw the fleet of news trucks and police vehicles swarming the street next to mine, and I thought, "huh, I wonder what's going on there."

I arrived in the office, to texts from friends saying that the lockdown had been expanded to Boston. I also found out that that swarm had been surrounding the marathon bombers' old apartment and there was talk of having to do a controlled explosion. Their apartment is three houses over from my place, and that block had been evacuated. I wasn't going to be going back soon.

So, you know, I got on with my day, we had a couple of conference calls with West Coast clients that started with a frisson of tension and "how are you doing there?" but switched right into, "and let's get on with the agenda." The code that we were writing was a little sloppier than our usual. People were making a few more mistakes. Tried to handle it accordingly.

And, in the background, there's the Facebook feed and Mefi thread updates and low hum of NPR. I went out briefly for lunch. The great Italian place around the corner was open and for once, I did not have to wait in a crazy line. The liquor shop with the fantastic wine and scotch selections was also open. Or more, specifically, the owner said, "I'm not supposed to be open, but if you knock, I'll open the door."

The Starbucks was open. Most of the patrons had FBI or ATF jackets. All of the State police were at the Dunkin Donuts a block over.

Outside, in the middle of downtown Boston, tourists were still walking through Fanueil Hall. A tour group of twenty was being lectured about the Boston Massacre.

Eventually, at three pm, I got fed up of waiting for the bomb squad to do their controlled explosion and rode my bike back over the Charles. My neighborhood was still swarming with cops, and a crowd of news people and neighborhood people had gathered around Norfolk street. My local bike shop, run by a fabulous, kind woman, had its door open and was letting people hang out and exchange rumors about what streets were closed and which areas were lifted. My street was fine, but Norfolk was still cordoned off. The Portuguese cafe across the street was raking it in on TV crews.

I rode into Somerville, to get some groceries at Market Basket. The 'Ville had not yet been officially included in the lockdown, but the mayor had politely asked everyone to minimize their travel and cooperate with the general spirit of the emergency. The Market Basket was jammed. Lots of people were coming in on bikes. I think it was the sort of unofficial guideline during the lockdown. If you have to be out and about, don't be traffic. Ride a bike. Walk. Rollerblade. Don't be in the way of an ambulance or a police cruiser.

I went home. Cleaned my apartment, and sent out an invite to my friends, "when this blows over and you can leave your house, you can come here."

By 5:30 a lot of us, those who had stayed indoors throughout the entire day, were getting stir crazy. We really, dearly wanted the lockdown lifted; though I think most of us would've sucked it up if it went into the night.

Except it didn't. The lockdown was lifted at 6. By 7, I had friends on my back porch with cookies and the remains of booze that they had been drinking at home. When the update about further shooting happened, we fired up the TV; but conversations drifted between the living room and the porch depending on each of our appetites for more news.

More friends appeared with scotch and boxes of free chicken wings that were being handed out by the soul food restaurant at the end of my block. We toasted and hugged each other when the boy was taken alive. And we kept talking, about the great things we read and what we did to keep our spirits up during FuckThisWeek. We talked about pride and summer plans and and who should play who in the movie dramatization (Philip Seymour Hoffman for Menino? yes) We took DrunkOClock photos of ourselves to send to friends who no longer lived in Boston, but seemed to take this ordeal harder than the rest of us -- friends who lived on the West Coast but remember the Town Diner in Watertown and were just so happy to get internet pictures of us being shitfaced and carrying on with life as normal.

That was life in the lockdown. It was what made me fall back in love with this city.
posted by bl1nk at 9:30 AM on April 20, 2013 [102 favorites]


Rory, I really appreciate your thoughtful, long response to my thoughts. I strongly disagree, and I think you misunderstand me on at least one key point.
I don't think it's psychopathy for a person who grows up in suffering and oppression and hatred and misery to decide they want to take radical action.

Lots of people live in unjust and oppressive societies and find a way to resist without committing atrocities. An authoritarian system can take away one's liberty, one's possessions or one's life. But I think the arc of history shows that our moral selves are made of stronger stuff than that. Making a moral comparison between these killers in Boston and freedom fighters makes me physically ill.
I don't think it's psychopathy for a person who grows up in suffering and oppression and hatred and misery to decide they want to take radical action. I think it's perfectly sane to decide that, yes, the world frustrates you, it's frustrating beyond the abilities of your lifespan to revolve, and while you don't have much power, you'll use what little you have to make some kind of impact. Maybe even an impact that, despite causing more pain and anguish, even perhaps to innocent victims, ultimately grants you or your family or your friends or your culture some measure of hope in the future. Maybe you have an awful idea of what consequences your actions will have, and all you cause is more pain and suffering, but if you're not cognizant of the futility of your behavior, can you be blamed for that either?
You are apologizing for these men, and assuming facts not in evidence. You charitably presume that these killers "grew up in suffering and oppression and hatred and misery." Even if they did, that doesn't provide some kind of license for moral ignorance.
Sometimes there is insanity at work, sure. But if you think that insanity is the only reason for somebody to commit a crime against somebody else, you're worrisomely ignorant about the state of the world, about the injustices it causes without seemingly trying.

We agree on this point. I don't know whether these guys were sane or not. It's quite possible they were fully aware of the dimensions of their actions, and decided on that course rationally.
The ability to feel empathy is a privilege, a gift, a responsibility; we have a duty to empathize to the utmost extent of our abilities, whatever that extent might be.

From where does this "duty" to empathize spring? As responsible members of a liberal society, I'd argue that we have a "duty to understand" so we can better prevent such tragedies in the future. And if some kind of provisional "empathy for the sake of argument" is necessary to reconstruct their twisted agenda, fine, I'll grant that. But "sympathy" and "compassion" are too much to ask from people who should love the good in this world, and hate the evil in it.
posted by BobbyVan at 9:31 AM on April 20, 2013 [3 favorites]


"A few minutes thinking about that idea reveals how tremendously flawed a strategy it would be..."

You didn't include a home-invasion/hostage scenario, which I think would be as likely as the home of an accomplice. In fact, combine it with the unknown accomplice scenario, and that seems quite likely. Then the fugitive wouldn't need a hostage in order to keep whoever speaks to the police from revealing them. And since this person was possibly a terrorist in the fullest sense (I thought it unlikely, but it was still possible), an unknown accomplice was a real possibility. And that accomplice could come to where the fugitive is, which is much easier than the other way around.

I think that attempting to hide in a home without the residents knowing would be an unlikely thing for a fugitive to attempt, except when there was no other choice. That doesn't include detached buildings or an unused basement or the like. But hiding under a boat is pretty much in that category. And you're right: the LE is going to want to search all these things because you really can't rely upon people to do it themselves. And, d'uh, if they did do it themselves and found the armed and desperate fugitive, what then? So expecting them to search themselves is putting them in more danger.

Back to an invasion/hostage situation, if you're a fugitive and you know that the police are conducting home searches, then you'll be less likely to attempt to invade a home and take a resident hostage because it won't help your presence there remain hidden. If you thought that they were taking residents' word on it, that would make it a more attractive option.

So taking peoples' word on it both wouldn't work and increases the danger to residents in two different ways. Like you, I don't know why this isn't obvious to everyone.
posted by Ivan Fyodorovich at 9:34 AM on April 20, 2013 [1 favorite]


For those wondering about motive and societal background and the suspects' orietation to political oppression and that sort of thing, the New York Times has a very good set of stories on the front page providing a great deal of context. Not an explanation, but context, and it should improve reasoning on this topic. I recommend them.
posted by Miko at 9:38 AM on April 20, 2013 [2 favorites]


The "can you define evil" question leading to an answer of "the opposite of good" reminded me of this exchange from the Simpsons, when Apu's mother wants him to marry someone he's never met in an arranged marriage, and Apu is trying to avoid it by pretending to already be married to Marge:
Apu's mother: Surely you know the background to your father's heritage.

Bart: So long as you have no follow up questions, then yes, we do.

Lisa: Fully. We have to go now.
To be clear, I'm not saying koeselitz's full answer was that way... more like when I saw the question, "the opposite of good" was in fact how I imagined it was going to be answered, which then reminded me of that Simpsons moment.

In any case, I tend to think it's more like Justice Potter Steward on what is "hardcore pornography":
I shall not today attempt further to define the kinds of material I understand to be embraced within that shorthand description; and perhaps I could never succeed in intelligibly doing so. But I know it when I see it, and the motion picture involved in this case is not that.
An example of knowing it when I see it: Intentionally withholding pain medication for no reason other than revenge, punishment, or hatred.
posted by Flunkie at 9:39 AM on April 20, 2013 [1 favorite]


You didn't include a home-invasion/hostage scenario, which I think would be as likely as the home of an accomplice.

Yes, I did. It's part of point 1.
posted by Miko at 9:40 AM on April 20, 2013


You are apologizing for these men, and assuming facts not in evidence. You charitably presume that these killers "grew up in suffering and oppression and hatred and misery." Even if they did, that doesn't provide some kind of license for moral ignorance.

I didn't read it that way at all. I didn't read it as an apology, and I didn't read it as license. I read it as trying to understand a context in which someone might do this. Trying to understand is not the same as excusing or agreeing or giving permission.
posted by rtha at 9:40 AM on April 20, 2013 [9 favorites]


Or wait, I see what you're suggesting, a further elaboration of "hostage" in which the resident is somehow dispatched out of sight and an accomplice replaces them, acting as resident.
posted by Miko at 9:42 AM on April 20, 2013


The Starbucks was open. Most of the patrons had FBI or ATF jackets. All of the State police were at the Dunkin Donuts a block over.

Oh, man, this made me smile.
posted by Ruki at 9:44 AM on April 20, 2013 [23 favorites]


Making a moral comparison between these killers in Boston and freedom fighters makes me physically ill.

But those two things depend almost entirely upon your point of view, no? i.e. the IRA, and how some people in Boston (where as people have pointed out, there were collection boxes in some Irish establishments) felt versus some people in London, versus various people in Londonderry or Ulster.

I am not saying that these two brothers were freedom fighters, because we still have no idea why they did what they did- for all we know, they just wanted to hurt people. But the line drawn between terrorist and freedom fighter is predictably subjective.
posted by oneirodynia at 9:48 AM on April 20, 2013 [6 favorites]


God, Lindsey Graham needs to STFU about a pending criminal case.

Also, now do people understand why Obama horsetraded for the right to personally decide whether or not somebody gets military detention in the NDAA negotiations, or why they made sure that it has the disclaimer that it supercedes no laws within the US?
posted by Ironmouth at 9:50 AM on April 20, 2013 [1 favorite]


I hope he gets the best medical care available and that he is brought back to as close a physical state as he was in before the attacks. I want him to be completely aware and lucid. And then I want him to face the victims, the city of Boston, and the citizens of the US in a courtroom.

What I took comfort in during this week was this: If you do something like this, we will find you. We will engage all of the resources of the US. We will put your face out there so that hundreds of millions of people will be watching for you. We will put tens of thousands of police officers in a small community to pin you down. We will shut down a major city. Whatever it takes - We will find you.

Boston has been through hell this week and here's wishing them a great damn weekend. They've earned it.
posted by azpenguin at 9:52 AM on April 20, 2013 [1 favorite]


"Yes, I did. It's part of point 1." ... "Or wait, I see what you're suggesting, a further elaboration of 'hostage'..."

Sorry, I really did miss your hostage bit. I think I'm tired this morning. I was actually up for 48 hours until I finally went to bed yesterday at 3PM, then I only slept 7 hours, and not well, I've been up since. I'm fuzzy.

But, yeah, only when I was writing that response and was considering your accomplice/safe-house scenario did it occur to me that an accomplice coming to where the fugitive had invaded a home would be the ideal situation for the fugitive if LE were taking peoples' word on it.
posted by Ivan Fyodorovich at 9:59 AM on April 20, 2013 [2 favorites]


Humanist/Secular Community Memorial for Boston Marathon Bombings
Sunday April 21, 5 p.m.

One hope with this meeting is to provide a safe space for nonreligious people who may not yet have had a chance to express their feelings in a supportive environment. We trust that all who attend will help us create an atmosphere of respect and dignity. Licensed psychologists will be available to support members of our community in case of extreme distress during the event.

We will meet at the Humanist Community at Harvard's offices at 12 Eliot Street in Harvard Square, before moving to the nearby John F. Kennedy Park.
posted by audi alteram partem at 10:02 AM on April 20, 2013 [3 favorites]


One thing I think non-residents are missing is the snow day effect. Every year here in Boston there's 2-3 days of howling blizzards so bad that despite excellent plowing services, the city effectively shuts down and most businesses (as well as all schools) are closed.

We are, to some extent, fairly used to having a day spent curled up with our loved ones after a particularly shitty week in the external environment department, and god knows it's been one of those. A number of my local friends commented on it feeling exactly like a snow day except it was a terrorist manhunt day - and honestly in terms of stress and overall vibe that was pretty damn accurate.

My point being: I don't know that even in the most cynical view one could rightfully accuse Bostonians of being docile in their response - it was more like we had an established behavioral pattern that unexpectedly mapped weirdly close to the needs of the situation and just fell into that as a matter of routine. Literally every last local friend & co-worker I talked to did exactly the same thing they did last time we had a snow day.

Oh, and for what it's worth, in my opinion calls for torture whether from people directly affected or completely unaffected are severely disturbing. Torture accomplishes nothing and only serves to degrade those who engage in it or encourage it. We need to be better than that for our own sakes.
posted by Ryvar at 10:02 AM on April 20, 2013 [20 favorites]


That is a good poitn, Ryvar. Interestingly, we got a 2-3" blizzard this year and it was the very first time the state of Mass. tried something new - closing down all the highways. It inconvenienced some, but there was plenty of warning and people mostly stayed home, and it without a doubt vastly reduced the number of complicated snow accidents as well as the need to go rescue/help people in snow accidents, and let the roads get cleared much more simply. That was a bit precedent-setting maybe in that people saw the wisdom of the idea and went with it, so when this stay-home request came out, people felt that it was probably pretty well considered.
posted by Miko at 10:07 AM on April 20, 2013


You are apologizing for these men, and assuming facts not in evidence. You charitably presume that these killers "grew up in suffering and oppression and hatred and misery." Even if they did, that doesn't provide some kind of license for moral ignorance.

I have no idea where these killers came from. I'd like to know.

Let's say they are truly psychopathic. Would it be right to condemn them, hate them, make them suffer unnecessarily, for what is essentially a generic flaw?

What if they grew up emotionally damaged, traumatized, whatever, from some event that left their perception of morality permanently skewed? Do we condemn them from suffering such an event?

Or what if they feel their faith, their culture, is somehow stigmatized and suffering? I think at that point you can be critical of dogma or brainwashing or pride or ignorance, but the criticism has to involve whatever culture they acted for – they would be, to some extent, a result of that environment.

Maybe there was no greater reason, and they simply felt alienated or disconnected from the world around them. In which case I can feel pain at their youth and their idiotic "idealism", their too-simple understanding of how the world works, their inability to empathize with their community.

Probably the point at which I truly would feel no mercy for them is if their actions stemmed from some kind of cold-hearted and calculating cynicism, something purely nihilistic, a "nothing matters beyond what people decide matters, and people don't matter, so anything's fair game". But I find it hard to believe that such a dark mentality would originate in a vacuum, detached from either alienation or psychosis.

None of these are apologies. They're suggestions that no matter what the motives of these people might be, there is reason not to simply spit on them and deny them humane treatment and go on with life. Down that path lies nothing: no change, no growth, no improvement. If we understand nothing, there's no way of knowing this won't happen again.

Lots of people live in unjust and oppressive societies and find a way to resist without committing atrocities. An authoritarian system can take away one's liberty, one's possessions or one's life. But I think the arc of history shows that our moral selves are made of stronger stuff than that. Making a moral comparison between these killers in Boston and freedom fighters makes me physically ill.

Freedom fighters have a tendency to be condemned by others no matter how mild their actions. Hell, simply people saying "I don't like this thing" when "this thing" is an easy and obvious thing to not like will arouse others' ire. I don't find it hard to understand why some, in dire circumstances, would forego any form of mild protest and instead seek the most radical and extreme way of making themselves be heard.

(I have no way of knowing whether the Boston duo did what they did for this reason.)

From where does this "duty" to empathize spring? As responsible members of a liberal society, I'd argue that we have a "duty to understand" so we can better prevent such tragedies in the future. And if some kind of provisional "empathy for the sake of argument" is necessary to reconstruct their twisted agenda, fine, I'll grant that. But "sympathy" and "compassion" are too much to ask from people who should love the good in this world, and hate the evil in it.

The duty to empathize springs directly from the "love the good" and "hate the evil" you refer to. I empathize because I am not merely good, I am not devoid of evil. I contribute to the evils of the world I'm a part of in many ways, sometimes consciously but many times not. And because I understand that I am a part of this, I will try my damnedest to understand the ways in which other people are a part, and to care about what drove them to such vile behaviors. I won't say "forgive", though I know many people would say that forgiveness is what we should be striving for – I don't think my notion of forgiveness quite meshes with the justice that these people deserve. But I can feel compassion for somebody I hope stays in prison for a long time, perhaps even the rest of his life.
posted by Rory Marinich at 10:14 AM on April 20, 2013 [10 favorites]


One thing I think non-residents are missing is the snow day effect.

Yes! I don't think I'd thought about it consciously, but that's exactly how it felt. Stuff's going on outside I can't quite cope with; better to stay off the roads and let the professionals handle it; I'm going to stay in, watch TV, and play video games.

As soon as the shelter in place warning was lifted, we went to the store for eggs, milk, and bread.
posted by moss at 10:17 AM on April 20, 2013 [2 favorites]


(I worry that I'm not writing about this issue particularly sensitively, so I apologize in advance to anybody I may have offended, and think I'm going to bow out now rather than dig down and make things worse.)
posted by Rory Marinich at 10:17 AM on April 20, 2013 [2 favorites]


Remember that Saudi National who was running away from the scene, wounded? Only to be be taken into custody for questioning? Michelle Obama visited him in hospital according to a Saudi News Site.

Then she's part of the cover-up!
posted by homunculus at 10:18 AM on April 20, 2013


David Cay Johnston on How the NRA Impeded the Boston Bombing Investigation.

The NRA's motive? Protecting the profits of the gunpowder and gun manufacturers that fund the NRA, Johnston says.

"The inability to quickly track the gunpowders in the Boston bombs is due to government policy designed and promoted by the NRA, which has found a way to transform every massacre associated with weapons into an opportunity for the munitions companies that sustain it to sell more guns, gunpowder and bullets."


That makes no sense. The two suspects were identified and captured within the same week of the bombing.
posted by riruro at 10:20 AM on April 20, 2013


I just got back from visiting the Watertown library. Some observations:
  • I have never seen so many people outside walking around on a day as crummy as this. It's nicer than it's been, but it was wet and miserable until about an hour ago, but everyone is walking along the Charles or pushing a stroller or riding a bike.
  • The library was packed. Full of parents letting their kids play in the children's area and people just trying to get out of the house.
  • There are Red Cross disaster relief people around making sure everyone is alright, which was nice. We're planning to give blood next month anyway, after all the attention dies down.
  • It was nice to see a lot of road traffic, as well. I hope that the local businesses recover a lot of lost business today.
The only real problem we have here is that my wife and I heard that Dzhokhar had been captured, and then it was time for bed. We never really got to stand down yesterday, so we're a little on edge, and a lot tired. Other than that, it's nice that things are back to normal.
posted by Elementary Penguin at 10:20 AM on April 20, 2013 [3 favorites]




I'm going to take a punt that this isn't a derail, since Port Arthur has already been brought up, as has gun control. And even if it is, this thread could use some levity and I will ride the deletion with pride, but John Oliver meets John Howard to discuss US gun control.

Sorry, "The Daily Show | John Howard | Gun Control | April 18th 2013" was deleted at 12:54:50 Sat Apr 20, 2013.

Here ya go: Gun Control Whoop-de-doo
posted by homunculus at 10:25 AM on April 20, 2013


Why should we treat him with compassion and care, when he cruelly and knowingly set out to kill and maim innocent people? Well, because we're the fucking good guys, is why. We lose nothing by respecting this guy's human rights. And we gain -- look, what you water grows, right? The more energy we put into hurting this guy, whether in reality or just in our heads, the more energy we have put into hurt and hate. The abyss stares also.

Withholding painkillers isn't going to find any other bombs, denying him medical care isn't going to bring his victims back to life. Torture doesn't work, we know this. What does work? Treating the person you're interrogating with humanity and compassion; demonstrating to him that regardless of what he thought, we are the good guys. This is part of the standard operating procedure for interrogators in the US, this isn't even in question.

I don't know if I believe in Evil as a stand-alone, distinct force. In fact, I'm pretty sure I don't. But if Evil does exist, its essence is in taking actions that will result in harm to others just because it feels good to you. And that's what revenge is -- revenge feels good, and it feels right, and it feels justified, but it doesn't bring back the victims and it doesn't stick people's legs back on and it doesn't roll back 24 hours of lockdown. It just escalates the situation and makes it more likely that more people will respond with violence, more people will get hurt, and more people will die.

We have an amazing opportunity to be the good guys here. Why would we throw that away?
posted by KathrynT at 10:25 AM on April 20, 2013 [49 favorites]


Just to lighten things up, the Sox game is on, they're bringing a bunch of people out on the field. Citizens, cops, FBI agents, the governor, the father who pushes his son's wheelchair in every Boston Marathon. And FWIW, the anthem has no singer, they're having the crowd do it.
posted by zombieflanders at 10:26 AM on April 20, 2013 [13 favorites]


Did Big Papi just say "this is our fuckin' city"?
posted by dirtdirt at 10:31 AM on April 20, 2013 [5 favorites]


"Well, because we're the fucking good guys, is why."

Yeah, supposedly.

Abu Ghraib and secret prisons and waterboarding and a bunch of other things, many not related to the Iraq war, have pretty much soured me on the claim that the US is "the good guys".

More to the point, I was thinking as I read your comment about how many terrorists believe that what they're doing is right because they're the "good guys", just as US torturers did in the last decade, or the soldiers did in Mai Lai, or whatever, and it occurred to me that here is a really damn good test:

If you refuse to intentionally cause suffering to others because you think you're "one of the good guys" and doing so would violate your values, you probably really are one of the good guys.

If you do intentionally cause suffering to others because you think you're "one of the good guys" and doing so is in accordance with your values, you probably are not one of the good guys.

This has been a public service message from me to the USA.
posted by Ivan Fyodorovich at 10:37 AM on April 20, 2013 [23 favorites]


I actually think there's more agreement here than disagreement: it was an evil act, committed by people who should be held accountable according to the Law, and while I don't like lockdowns or martial law, this was one of the few incidents where the power used to find the suspects was a good choice. In fact, I wouldn't have a problem with CCTVs on every corner if and only if the local governments had to apply for permission to use them to solve certain crimes and keep everything above board. Obviously that's an easily abused technology, so I'm not sure if I'd trust every police department with it.

One thing I have been pondering is that if the two brothers had simply opened fire instead of using IEDs, this story would have been over days ago. Sandy Hook is no longer news. Aurora is no longer news. Virginia Tech is no longer news. What I want to know is when this country is going to collectively grow up and start addressing the foundational issues with our communities, and our addiction to violence, and start treating the disease instead of papering over the symptoms. How is it that we can afford thousands of police officers, modified tanks, drones, helicopters, thousands of bullet proof SUVs, but we can't afford free mental health care facilities? It's like our whole society is designed to break people and then clap ourselves on the back for throwing them away.

I know it's an institutional problem, and not one borne out of evil right or left wing conspiracies, but that doesn't help the victims on both sides of barrels and the bombs. We need sensible weapons policies and sensible mental health care policies and a national dialogue about why the richest country in the world is also the most violent on every single metric when compared to nations with similar resources. Good and Evil is not an answer. It's an excuse to do nothing.
posted by tripping daisy at 10:39 AM on April 20, 2013 [13 favorites]


Did Big Papi just say "this is our fuckin' city"?


He did. And they broadcast it live on ESPN, among other national places. It'll be interesting to see if there is a stink made. I mean, who is going to complain about that in this context?

Liberal application of the f-word is also a Boston tradition.
posted by dirtdirt at 10:42 AM on April 20, 2013 [8 favorites]


Did Big Papi just say "this is our fuckin' city"?

Yes.
posted by (Arsenio) Hall and (Warren) Oates at 10:45 AM on April 20, 2013 [8 favorites]


"...a national dialogue about why the richest country in the world is also the most violent on every single metric when compared to nations with similar resources."

That's not true. The UK, for example, has a higher rate of most violent crimes than the US, excluding murder. And you can probably figure out why that's the exception. And, anyway, violent crime in the US and the UK and comparable countries has been declining for the last twenty or thirty years.

That's not to say that we oughtn't have a better mental health infrastructure, gun-control, and less economic inequality, because I certainly think we should and those things would all reduce violence. But I'm not sure that the reality of violence and its social context is quite what you think it is.
posted by Ivan Fyodorovich at 10:46 AM on April 20, 2013 [4 favorites]


Liberal application of the f-word is also a Boston tradition.
Rocco: Fuck you. What the fucking fuck? Who the fuck fucked this fuckin'... How did you two fucking fucks... FUCK!?

Connor: Well, that certainly illustrates the diversity of the word.

- Boston cult classic Boondock Saints
posted by maryr at 10:50 AM on April 20, 2013 [4 favorites]


If you refuse to intentionally cause suffering to others because you think you're "one of the good guys" and doing so would violate your values, you probably really are one of the good guys.

If you do intentionally cause suffering to others because you think you're "one of the good guys" and doing so is in accordance with your values, you probably are not one of the good guys.


Yes, beautifully and succinctly put.

I will say that calls for torture are (inadvertently) very useful in demonstrating how, throughout human history, it can be quite easy for some people under some circumstances to dehumanize their enemy to the point that they will volunteer themselves as willing to commit acts that are obviously barbaric. From torturing suspected "witches" into confessing in the 16th century to looking into someones eye's while you put down a bomb right in front of them in the 21st, for example.

This, in itself, actually goes some way to explaining how some forms of evil (or "evil," depending where you fall in the current debate) actually finds expression in the world -- a realization that I suspect is lost upon at least some (if not most?) of the people who are calling for torture as a suitable way to deal with the problem of evil.
posted by scody at 10:51 AM on April 20, 2013 [12 favorites]


Whatever you do...do not watch the sequel to that movie.
posted by cjorgensen at 10:51 AM on April 20, 2013


there is reason not to simply spit on them and deny them humane treatment and go on with life.

Who is proposing they be spit on? Who is proposing they be denied humane treatment?

Its a strawman. Totally.
posted by Ironmouth at 10:57 AM on April 20, 2013 [2 favorites]


Whatever you do...do not watch the sequel to that movie.

The documentary is great.
posted by Artw at 10:58 AM on April 20, 2013 [3 favorites]


The Tragedies Of Other Places
It is this greater poignancy of attacks in America that begs the question of whether the world’s allocations of sympathy are determined not by the magnitude of a tragedy—the numbers dead and injured—but by the contrast between a society’s normal and the cruel aftermath of a terrorist event. It is in America that the difference between the two is the greatest; the American normal is one of a near-perfect security that is unimaginable in many places, especially in countries at war. The very popularity of the Boston Marathon could be considered an expression of just this. America is so secure and free from suffering that people have the luxury of indulging in deliberate suffering in the form of excruciating physical exertion; this suffering in turn produces well-earned exhilaration, a singular sense of physical achievement and mental fortitude. The act of running a marathon is supposed to be simple, individual—a victory of the will over the body, celebrated by all and untouched by the complicated questions of who in the world can choose to suffer and who only bears suffering.
posted by the man of twists and turns at 10:59 AM on April 20, 2013 [4 favorites]




Who is proposing they be spit on? Who is proposing they be denied humane treatment?

Its a strawman. Totally.


There was this comment, about withholding painkillers, which many people responded to.
posted by rtha at 11:03 AM on April 20, 2013 [6 favorites]


Every single complaint I've seen about the shelter in place order has come from someone who wasn't affected by it.

I heard similar complaints in 2005 when a white supremacist group made plans to march through the Polish Village neighborhood here in Toledo, less than a mile from my house. It's a working class neighborhood, crammed with Busias and Dziadzios, and young to middle-aged African-American families. It's a pretty close-knit neighborhood, being one of Toledo's Historic Districts.

As one might expect when a hate group wants to "protest" in a community, the neighbors were not at all thrilled, and many went out to yell at the marchers and tell them to get the fuck out of their neighborhood, they weren't going to have that nonsense. An out of town anti-racism group was there to counter-protest the marchers, and they got to yelling. And the marchers yelled back, the cops called off the march...and then fights started breaking out.

The fights turned into a full blown riot, with fires set, cars flipped and burned, a bar burnt down, buildings smashed up, bricks thrown, cops and firefighters injured, the whole shebang. The Mayor imposed an actual lockdown on the city - not a request to shelter in place, not urging residents to stay inside, but an honest-to-fuck lockdown, 8PM get-your-ass-off-the-streets-or-be-arrested curfew. I have never seen so many police patrols in my quiet little neighborhood EVER, not even when some asshole robbed the bank last year and hot-footed it into my neighborhood.

You know who bitched? People in neighboring suburbs not affected by the curfew. People in completely different parts of the state who had never even set foot in Toledo, let alone Polish Village. You know who didn't bitch? All of us who were pissed off that some fuckwits from out of town showed up to start trouble in a neighborhood they knew nothing about, save OMG BLACK PEOPLE! People in Columbus were screaming "Civil rights! Martial law!" People in Toledo were saying "Round these fuckers up, yes the curfew is inconvenient but if it will let you get the job done quickly, okeedokee, don't wanna get my fool head blown off."

Sheep? No. Finely tuned sense of self-preservation, and an aversion to potentially getting caught in cross-fire. Baaaaaa.
posted by MissySedai at 11:03 AM on April 20, 2013 [18 favorites]


I was thinking as I read your comment about how many terrorists believe that what they're doing is right because they're the "good guys", just as US torturers did in the last decade, or the soldiers did in Mai Lai, or whatever,

We have no evidence these people thought they were one of the good guys. Have you interviewed those people?

We don't have any clue why these two Americans did these things at the Boston Marathon. It is 100% pure speculation, fostered by the need for programming on our TV screens. All of this stuff about them being psychotic, or motivated by good thoughts or whatever is not based on any evidence whatsoever.

All other talk is pure navel-gazing. It is looking in a mirror and describing what we see and then projecting it on to these two people.
posted by Ironmouth at 11:05 AM on April 20, 2013 [5 favorites]


"Who is proposing they be denied humane treatment?

"Its a strawman. Totally." (My emphasis.)

Here: "I hope the staff at the hospital are holding back on the painkillers."

On preview I see someone has already pointed this out. But I'm repeating it, anyway, because of the force of your assertion and the fact that calling something a strawman is a debating tactic that has some value when it's, you know, true, but is inexcusable when it's not. And it's not as if the above comment wasn't quoted or paraphrased about twenty times after it was posted in this thread or generated probably three times that many comments, total, in response.

However, since you made such an uneqivocal, absolute assertion, and I'll assume you're arguing in good-faith, I can only imagine that's there's some bug in your browser that caused all those comments to not appear in the version of this thread that you are reading.
posted by Ivan Fyodorovich at 11:13 AM on April 20, 2013 [7 favorites]


Kind of glad to be back in a place where there's room for hair splitting and handwringing, TBH. C'mon hippies, have a hug.
posted by Artw at 11:13 AM on April 20, 2013 [3 favorites]


There was this comment, about withholding painkillers, which many people responded to.

I interpreted that comment as completely emotive, an expression of rage rather than any sincere suggestion that doctors actually withhold painkillers.

Which is why I thought everyone's rush to be the most sanctimonious in lecturing that commenter was rather distasteful.

Whatever compassion he deserves is built into our criminal criminal justice system (especially the federal system) in the form of legal counsel, food, medical care, an orderly and dignified trial ... It really beggars belief that people feel it incumbent upon them to lecture other members about the necessity of compassion for the suspect.
posted by Unified Theory at 11:17 AM on April 20, 2013 [9 favorites]


RORY: "I don't think it's psychopathy for a person who grows up in suffering and oppression and hatred and misery to decide they want to take radical action.

BOBBYLots of people live in unjust and oppressive societies and find a way to resist without committing atrocities. An authoritarian system can take away one's liberty, one's possessions or one's life. But I think the arc of history shows that our moral selves are made of stronger stuff than that. Making a moral comparison between these killers in Boston and freedom fighters makes me physically ill."

So, there are a couple of things that I think should be clarified in this conversation:

1) Not all radical action is violence.
2) Not all political violence is terrorism.
3) Some political violence is justifiable.
4) There's no real clear sense that the Boston bombings are political violence.

I think that making the offhand case for radical political violence in the face of oppression is possible but inappropriate here; it's a superficially similar position but differs on significant details and as such it feels disrespectful to disregard the actual reality of the Boston bombing and aftermath.

I think there is sometimes a conservative trope of setting impossible and contradictory standards for what legitimate political violence is, but I think that Bobby is being pretty fair here, and that arguments to the contrary seem to all come from a reflexive, rather than considered, moral relativism.
posted by klangklangston at 11:18 AM on April 20, 2013 [7 favorites]


An eyewitness account of the two brothers stopping for snacks while on the run

Strange. Also, yet another account of the mysterious car-jacking victim that the brothers released. What's his story? He still being questioned or something? No leaks to the press regarding his account?
posted by (Arsenio) Hall and (Warren) Oates at 11:22 AM on April 20, 2013


That's not true. The UK, for example, has a higher rate of most violent crimes than the US, excluding murder. And you can probably figure out why that's the exception. And, anyway, violent crime in the US and the UK and comparable countries has been declining for the last twenty or thirty years

That's not true. There are two measures of violent crime in the UK: those reported by the police, and those reported directly by the populace in a very thorough process. (more info here) There's actually no easy way to measure it between the two countries because of varying definitions.

If you can look at this graph and claim the US does not have a problem, you have a better rationalization defense mechanisms than I do.
posted by tripping daisy at 11:23 AM on April 20, 2013


All right, just for fun: Glen Beck gives Obama til Monday to admit the Boston bombing was an inside job or his show will reveal the evidence for his conspiracy theory!
posted by Secret Life of Gravy at 11:23 AM on April 20, 2013 [5 favorites]


The comment about withholding painkillers has been characterized as torture and as a violation of civil rights, which is, in my opinion, total hyperbole.
posted by feste at 11:25 AM on April 20, 2013


> What I want to know is when this country is going to collectively grow up and start addressing the foundational issues with our communities, and our addiction to violence, and start treating the disease instead of papering over the symptoms.

It is never going to happen until the country collapses.

The 1% have gotten where they are through keeping the population in fear.

We went almost seamlessly from the Commies to the Terrists (and it's important to remember that the various agencies deliberately, systematically and dramatically overestimated the strength of the Soviet Union for decades in order to increase fear and thus their budgets) - and now we have an enemy that our leaders have promised will be with us for all time, who can strike anywhere at any moment, and is so dangerous that we have turned off most of the Bill of Rights (between the "PATRIOT" Act and the steady "public safety" erosion of your Fifth Amendment rights) and adopted the AUMF, which has all the properties of a declaration of war except it gets around the Constitution, and it's completely open-ended (since there's no specific group the US is at war with).

And of course there is no avenue to fix this. Both parties agree - and third-parties are excluded from public discourse almost entirely. The Obama Administration has successfully prevented challenges to some of their programs like targeted assassination by claiming that these things are so secret that courts literally cannot examine them.

This strategy has been fabulously successful - the 1% have become far, far wealthier than any humans in history - so why would they allow us to change what is such a very good thing for them?

Of course, as they keep turning the heat up, individuals will explode and run amok - check that citation, it's very relevant - providing further reasons for fear and consequent oppression.
posted by lupus_yonderboy at 11:25 AM on April 20, 2013 [6 favorites]


"We have no evidence these people [ed. "many terrorists", US torturers, and the Mai Lai soldiers] thought they were one of the good guys."

We have no evidence that anyone in any of those groups thought of themselves as one of the good guys? Really? Is this truly your assertion?
posted by Ivan Fyodorovich at 11:25 AM on April 20, 2013 [2 favorites]


I'm at the game now, enjoying an expensive Narraganset. Last time I was at a KC game at Fenway, Neil Armstrong had just died- maybe I should give them a rest.

The pre-game stuff was well done- I think the Hoyts and Big Papi got the largest applause. Boston fuckin' loves swearing. Folks are going around collecting for Boston One in big yellow bags. Someone just asked Taylor to the prom via jumbotron.


Hey, it's Frank Malzone! And a guy just caught Drew's wild bat! Had to give it back, though.
posted by zamboni at 11:26 AM on April 20, 2013 [4 favorites]


It is 100% pure speculation, fostered by the need for programming on our TV screens.

Yup. This.

I always try to remember that 99% (ok…some huge percentage) of what I hear or read about events like this are from people who are not in the know. [This of course is minus official press conferences which don’t tell us much either, but that is another issue]. Yes, these oh-so-articulate…um “articulators” in print and on TV may possess an insight I do not from previous experience doing some related job. At the same time they have few hard facts they can offer because they are no longer in the official club – they are now outsiders from whatever the event is and are paid to generate content and keep you reading the adverts. And within that content, the “facts” they do deliver are often buffered with a disclaimer of some sort and glossed over with a schmear of sentimentality for good measure.

Of course, there are some of these reporters and organizations that are better than others, but overall, I take almost all reporting with a grain shaker of salt. Eventually (hopefully) the truth emerges, but more often that does not happen until well after the hysteria of the moment has long subsided.
posted by lampshade at 11:27 AM on April 20, 2013


char·la·tan *noun* \'shär-lə-tən\: Glenn Beck

I also have a prediction for Monday: somehow, Glenn Beck's "evidence" will prove that now is a great time to buy gold.
posted by (Arsenio) Hall and (Warren) Oates at 11:30 AM on April 20, 2013 [3 favorites]


Or seeds.
posted by cjorgensen at 11:31 AM on April 20, 2013 [1 favorite]


"[...] the Obama administration has already rolled back Miranda rights for terrorism suspects captured on US soil. It did so two years ago with almost no controversy or even notice, including from many of those who so vocally condemned Graham's Miranda tweets yesterday. [...] Instead of going to Congress, the Obama DOJ, in March 2011, simply adopted their own rules that vested themselves with this power, as reported back then by Salon's Justin Elliott ("Obama rolls back Miranda rights"), the Wall Street Journal ("Rights Are Curtailed for Terror Suspects"), the New York Times ("Delayed Miranda Warning Ordered for Terror Suspects"), and myself ("Miranda is Obama's latest victim").

"The Obama DOJ's Memorandum [...] expressly went beyond the "public safety" exception established by the Supreme Court to arrogate unto itself the power to question suspects about other matters without reading them their rights [...]:

""There may be exceptional cases in which, although all relevant public safety questions have been asked, agents nonetheless conclude that continued unwarned interrogation is necessary to collect valuable and timely intelligence not related to any immediate threat, and that the government's interest in obtaining this intelligence outweighs the disadvantages of proceeding with unwarned interrogation.""

Source.
posted by lupus_yonderboy at 11:34 AM on April 20, 2013 [1 favorite]


"I interpreted that comment as completely emotive, an expression of rage rather than any sincere suggestion that doctors actually withhold painkillers.

"Which is why I thought everyone's rush to be the most sanctimonious in lecturing that commenter was rather distasteful."


I share your generosity and its rationale. But not so far as to turn around and be condemnatory of those who criticized her statement, and certainly not to assume that those criticisms were sanctimonious. That response lacks all the generosity to them that you just had toward her.

Furthermore, calls to violence or to increase suffering for its own sake have moral consequences in their own right, even when they're emotive and not fully sincere. And we can't know that they're merely emotive and insincere — it's good to give the benefit of the doubt, but to the degree to which there is still doubt (and there is), marks the limits of how generously such statements can be interpreted.
posted by Ivan Fyodorovich at 11:35 AM on April 20, 2013 [5 favorites]


Glenn Beck has until Monday to come clean before I reveal that...

                                                                                               Glenn Beck is a fucking nut.

*GOD DAMMIT!*

forget you heard that last bit.

GLENN BECK, YOU'RE ON NOTICE!
posted by mazola at 11:37 AM on April 20, 2013


If you go to Glenn Beck's Twitter feed (why would you?? -- why did I??) you see that it's ALL about the Saudi national and then, at some point yesterday, it completely shifts and he starts talking about how "this terrorist deserves a fair trial!" "This terrorist" meaning Jahar. He just . . . completely abandoned the Saudi national narrative and starting hammering Obama over due process. He's not even hiding the circus. He knows that none of his followers give a shit.
posted by (Arsenio) Hall and (Warren) Oates at 11:37 AM on April 20, 2013 [1 favorite]


Has anybody seen any information from the carjacking victim they let go? Can't wait to hear his side of the story...
posted by andruwjones26 at 11:42 AM on April 20, 2013


Has anyone seen a motive for the shooting of the MIT police officer and the subsequent car-jacking? It seems out of character with the rest of their behavior. This more detailed description of the events from Talking Points Memo doesn't make it any clearer.
posted by alms at 11:44 AM on April 20, 2013 [1 favorite]


I think I'm going to need to see an interactive graphic in a week to make any sense of what happened Thursday night and Friday. Maybe by then the various agencies involved will be telling the same story, as well.
posted by Elementary Penguin at 11:53 AM on April 20, 2013


Why do you describe that TPM account as out of character? I've seen some speculation that they may have been interrupted trying to plant more bombs, perhaps on the MIT campus. They had the bombs with them, including a pressure cooker bomb.
posted by feste at 11:54 AM on April 20, 2013


Motives are pure conjecture until we find a note or he wakes up and starts talking.
posted by desjardins at 11:55 AM on April 20, 2013


Holy fuck that poor Saudi kid.

Beck using that poor kid, our guest in our country, as a cheap prop in his fantasies that he doesn't even give enough of a shit to run with will doom him to looking over his shoulder for the rest of his possibly much shorter life.

Wow.
posted by Blasdelb at 11:55 AM on April 20, 2013 [3 favorites]


Elementary Penguin - this is a pretty good map and graphic explaining the timeline. Obviously there are going to be some gaps, but this is a great start.
posted by desjardins at 11:57 AM on April 20, 2013


"That's not true. There are two measures of violent crime in the UK: those reported by the police, and those reported directly by the populace in a very thorough process. (more info here)"

It is true. That very link you used to refute me contains this paragraph:
Due to fundamental differences in how crime is recorded and categorized, it’s impossible to compute exactly what the British violent crime rate would be if it were calculated the way the FBI does it, but if we must compare the two, my best estimate‡ would be something like 776 violent crimes per 100,000 people. While this is still substantially higher than the rate in the United States, it’s nowhere near the 2,034 cited by Swann and the Mail.
Just because there are dishonest, crazy libertarian arguments that vastly overstate the rate of violent crime in the UK to justify a lack of gun-control, doesn't mean that the very opposite of every particular thing the dishonest, crazy libertarian says is true.

And your graph is the fatality rate in the context of violent crime and what it proves is that it is much easier in the US to kill someone when you commit violence because we have a fuckload of handguns, not because that fatality statistic itself represents a societal propensity for violence. And I agree: that graphs shows that there's a serious problem in the US. But it's not simply that we're a more violent society than all our peers.

You seem to be the mirror of that crazy libertarian. You have a conclusion you know you need to reach and you're determined to get there even when it's factually wrong in numerous respects.

During the same period as the availability of mental health care has greatly declined in the US, especially for the needy, because of reduced public funding and institutionalization and the increase of the proportion of the population that is uninsured, there's been a reduction in all categories of violent crime. During the same period as income inequality and job insecurity has risen in the US, there's been a reduction in all categories of violent crime. And it's just not true that, with the exception of murder, the US has a substantially higher violent crime rate than all other comparable countries. It doesn't.

But we do clearly have a murder problem.
posted by Ivan Fyodorovich at 11:57 AM on April 20, 2013 [2 favorites]


Charles Pierce: Guns Along The River: A Late Night In Watertown:
The gun battle into which John Donohue wandered exploded the comfortable narrative of these things. We had the event. Then we had the mourning. Then we had "Indomitability Day." Then we had the healing of the interfaith service at which the president gave a fine speech, and the demonstrations of solidarity at the Bruins game. That is the pattern of these things in our public lives, until the next one of these things happens, and then we do it all over again. We did it for Tucson after Columbine. We did it for Aurora after Tucson. We did it for Sandy Hook after Aurora. And, this week, we did it for Boston after Sandy Hook. It's the modern Stations of the Cross, with theme music, and logos, and Wolf Blitzer. We were done. We were healed. And then the Tsarnaev brothers came home. And one of them got away.

Suddenly, healing was very much beside the point. Suddenly, indomitability meant more than shouting brave imprecations on Facebook, or singing the Anthem loudly at a hockey game. Suddenly, indomitability meant staying inside your house, all day, while the men with the body armor and long guns walked your streets, because you might come out of your house and get yourself shot. Our autonomic emotional reflexes were all shorting out. This was an event that happened too soon after the previous event, even though, in most violent places in the world, that's the way these things happen. These are the places without the perennial media Via Dolorosa that we all walk every time another one of these things happen. Our steps were less steady. Our sense of direction was jumbled. We were on a familiar path for a while, and then some son of a bitch moved Golgotha on us, and we didn't know where to go next on our journey to redemption.
(And don't miss the funny anecdote where a passerby tries to hit Pierce up for weed.)
posted by tonycpsu at 12:00 PM on April 20, 2013 [10 favorites]


This more detailed description of the events from Talking Points Memo doesn't make it any clearer.

Yeah, really. They carjack an SUV, get money from an ATM, let the SUV owner go, and then arrive in Watertown in two separate cars??? Armed with lots of guns, improvised grenades and a pressure cooker device? Where did they retrieve the second car with the explosives?
posted by quonsar II: smock fishpants and the temple of foon at 12:01 PM on April 20, 2013


I think it is best to take something like an existentialist view of things like good, evil and love at times like this. They exist because we choose them.

I don't advocate torture or any inhumane treatment, but I think of this as more about us than him. We should want to be good and do what is right for our own sake, not his. It is how we choose to create the world we live in.

It's hard for me to imagine myself in his place, but maybe if he were to listen to his good uncle and meditate on his own actions for a little while, he might consider that a lifetime of Federal prison doesn't compare to the pain and suffering he has caused innocent children. If he were to cooperate with the FBI, and do his best to describe everything he remembers happening inside or outside his own head that lead him to do what he did, and dedicate whatever life he has left to preventing other such atrocities, I might consider that he has done some good that is obviously miniscule in comparison to the incomprehensible evil of the bombing.
posted by Golden Eternity at 12:02 PM on April 20, 2013


I still don't understand how he got from the SUV to the boat, but that makes more sense than the TPM article. Thanks, desjardins.
posted by Elementary Penguin at 12:04 PM on April 20, 2013


It's the modern Stations of the Cross, with theme music, and logos, and Wolf Blitzer.

priceless!
posted by quonsar II: smock fishpants and the temple of foon at 12:04 PM on April 20, 2013


One thing that at the very least seems like poor planning... The older brother's car was in the shop when the bombs went off, and wasn't ready to be picked up the next day.
posted by drezdn at 12:05 PM on April 20, 2013


Oh, I wouldn't get too het up on the details. It will probably all change once the dust settles.

In almost every news story these days, a big chunk of the details in early reports are simply made up by someone in the whole chain, and we never find out where.

Consider the Bin Laden assassination. Early on as the story broke, at one point we were hearing that Bin Laden had grabbed one of the women and used her as a human shield while shooting at the attackers. At the time, I was excoriated here on Mefi for musing that that didn't really sound like Bin Laden, and that the story might change. As we all know, it soon came out that Bin Laden was alone and unarmed when he was shot... but you will notice that no one ever explained where that first story came from.

Oh, it's not a conspiracy thing! I just think people make shit up to be important and in the heat and confusion and up-to-the-second news cycle, they get it out to "major" news networks, and then the "reporters" are later too embarrassed to go back and reveal who hoaxed them.

But still, expect that many details will change in the coming days and even weeks.
posted by lupus_yonderboy at 12:06 PM on April 20, 2013 [2 favorites]


Why do you describe that TPM account as out of character?

"Kind" and "good natured" stoner kid with perhaps depressive, sociopathic, or malicious intent drops a homemade bomb that his brother had made -- seems unlikely and strange but okay, life is strange and so far the pieces indicate that this is something within the realm of possible.

Stoner kid and brother assassinate a cop, then hijack a car but leave the driver unharmed, then go to a Shell station to "get snacks," then drive away in two cars and when a cop sees them, they get out of their cars and start shooting at the cop, more cops arrive and so the brothers start throwing bombs at the cops . . . this is serious video game territory. Not saying it didn't happen (I mean, we got a body in the morgue and the other in the hospital pointing to it actually happening), just saying that going from "nice stoner college kid who likes to party" to "full on bomb thrower assassinating cops" is -- yeah, I dunno, seems "out of character" from what we've learned so far of the kid.

Anybody else think it's possible the younger brother was very stoned/tripping the morning of the marathon? He's got a goofy smile on his face in a lot of those surveillance shots. His older brother's face is stoic, sober, determined. Jahar looks like he's just out for a fun jaunt in the city. It's all weird. Hope the kid pulls through so we get some answers, everything is very puzzling.
posted by (Arsenio) Hall and (Warren) Oates at 12:07 PM on April 20, 2013


quonsar II: smock fishpants and the temple of foon: "This more detailed description of the events from Talking Points Memo doesn't make it any clearer.

Yeah, really. They carjack an SUV, get money from an ATM, let the SUV owner go, and then arrive in Watertown in two separate cars??? Armed with lots of guns, improvised grenades and a pressure cooker device? Where did they retrieve the second car with the explosives?
"

Mercedes SUV. Come on. The Devil's in the details.

(I really find it beyond strange why everyone keeps reporting it was a Mercedes SUV over and over and over.)
posted by Samizdata at 12:10 PM on April 20, 2013 [4 favorites]


I just think people make shit up to be important and in the heat and confusion and up-to-the-second news cycle, they get it out to "major" news networks, and then the "reporters" are later too embarrassed to go back and reveal who hoaxed them.

And actually, it isn't clear to me that the reporters lose at all. There seems to be no penalty for reporting lies, so if their "reliable source in the Pentagon" keeps feeding them exciting but incorrect news, it's all good for them as long as they can really say, "Yes, the source is actually high-up in the Pentagon."
posted by lupus_yonderboy at 12:11 PM on April 20, 2013 [1 favorite]


Sens. Graham, McCain say Tsarnaev should be sent to Guantanamo

I wonder if they even know (or care) that there's a hunger strike going on at Gitmo.

Nearly half of Guantánamo prisoners now on hunger strike
posted by homunculus at 12:11 PM on April 20, 2013 [1 favorite]


It's weird. I'm a 44 year old man, stuck for health reasons in my birth country (England) where the suffocating "stiff upper lip" ethos inhibits emotions. But several times in the last week, I've cried at the relentlessly bad news - and, eventually, good news - coming out of the USA.

This quite brilliant comment over on the MetaTalk by Jessamyn, listing the many ways in which the events in Boston are personal, or feel personal, to many people, did me again. Hadn't considered many of them.

Boston's important to me. First visited there in December '95 with a bunch of librarians and information scientists for a WWW conference. Made connections, and friends, there that are still valid today. Met TBL who provided some crucial support and guidance for a librarian webzine, Ariadne, I was tasked with doing.

It was so cold, flights out were delayed, and one of our group of Europeans got minor frostbite. But the hospitality, and friendliness, of every Bostonian (without exception) I met stuck in the mind. Possibly, Boston was the place that started to make me think about emigrating to the USA. If I hadn't gone, then work, career path, friends, relationships and other things would probably not have worked out for me.

Speaking of relationships. A few years ago, was in a foolish relationship (it started for the wrong reasons, and brought out the worst behavior in both of us) with someone which ended badly and acrimoniously. It was complicated in that we have many common friends and colleagues, especially on social media. We both quickly moved on with new partners, and a baby in her case. I swore I would never, ever, get in touch or respond again, no matter the situation. That door is closed and nailed shut and bricked up.

But, she's from the greater Boston area and found myself worrying this Monday past, when news of the many injured came through, about friends and colleagues from Boston; including her. Sent her a cautious but sincere "Hope you and your family are okay" message. It felt the right thing to do.

I was a runner at school and set some decent times, but (regretfully) lost interest and gained many pounds. My fiancee decided this Monday past she was going to run in a race for the first time. She's ahead of me in progress and training. My long-term plan has been to work up to just half marathons as that feels like the "right" distance. But also on Monday I decided to commit to having just one crack at a full marathon, even if the distance seems terrifyingly impossible, in memory and acknowledgement of Boston 2013. Maybe I'll even run it in Boston. I've a feeling they'll have many, many runners over the next few years. The cover of next weeks New Yorker was another moment this week.

And listened to it "finish". My fiancee and I, video chatting, us both listening to the police scanner with many thousands of others, yesterday evening. Following it together on MetaFilter. And also laughing - a but uneasily, but also cathartically - at some of the NYPOST spoofs on MetaFilter chat. First time have laughed this week. And the long park walk in the sun today, watching runners run past, felt like an odd kind of closure on this specific incident; I'm not good at articulating this. Stiff upper lip and all that. People can, people will, run again no matter the actions of others, perhaps. I don't know.

Even though I'm not from Boston, the east coast, or even the USA, the events of the last week will stick with me more, and probably for a lot longer, than most. Heck knows how amplified it is for Bostonians, or the many other people in the list in Jessamyn's comment.
posted by Wordshore at 12:13 PM on April 20, 2013 [10 favorites]


The hunt for the bombing suspects took a violent turn Thursday night when two men believed to be the Tsarnaev brothers fatally shot an M.I.T. police officer, Sean A. Collier, 26, in his patrol car, the Middlesex County district attorney’s office said. Soon after, two armed men believed to be the brothers s carjacked a nearby Mercedes S.U.V. and drove off with the driver in the car.

At one point, the suspects told the driver “to get out of the car or they would kill him,” according to a law enforcement official. But then they apparently changed their plans, and forced the man to drive, the official said. At one point, the older brother took the wheel.

“They revealed to him that they were the two who did the marathon bombings,” the official said, adding that the suspects also told the car owner that they wanted to head to New York. At one point they drove to another vehicle, which the authorities believe was parked and unoccupied. There, the suspects got out and transferred materials, which the authorities believe included explosives and firearms, from the parked car to the sport utility vehicle.

The victim was released, uninjured, at a gas station on Memorial Drive in Cambridge, law enforcement officials said.
posted by feste at 12:14 PM on April 20, 2013 [3 favorites]


I actually think there's more agreement here than disagreement: it was an evil act, committed by people who should be held accountable according to the Law, and while I don't like lockdowns or martial law, this was one of the few incidents where the power used to find the suspects was a good choice. In fact, I wouldn't have a problem with CCTVs on every corner if and only if the local governments had to apply for permission to use them to solve certain crimes and keep everything above board. Obviously that's an easily abused technology, so I'm not sure if I'd trust every police department with it.
This is actually the way many public CCTV schemes in England are actually run. The local authority pays for, upkeeps, and works the CCTV system but don't actually use it. Local authorities have no policing powers or functions so they're effectively running it as a "help" to the police forces. The police forces themselves have to apply to see or use the images in criminal matters. The local authority cannot even use them in a civil matters. My hometown has a vechicle-restricted area which folk often drive through, and many have called on the local authority to use the CCTV in that area to identify the cars and thus drivers. But as it is a civil matter the police have no interest in the drivers, and so the local authority can't use the pictures to pursue them either.

Indeed, the very fact that local authorities don't have policing powers is the reason for the growth of CCTV. Voters like "law and order" messages but local politicians can't possibly deliver on them because they have no power. Thus they promise things like CCTV systems which they can deliver and seem like they are useful, even though they're not. The police seldom ask to see pictures, and even when they do the outcome is "no usable image" at least half the time. Given the prevalence of private CCTV and the commonness of digital cameras, it most likely isn't worth even investing in a big system anyway. Always take extra officers over CCTV, always.
posted by Jehan at 12:15 PM on April 20, 2013 [1 favorite]


Look, all I'm saying is the optics of this from the outside were disappointing. It's fine for people to stay inside, be safe, be cooperative with the police, but it's not fine to shut down the whole infrastructure of a city: Trains, buses, airport, all schools, businesses on and on it went, with the only people visible on streets to be guys in paramilitary gear holding assault rifles. bad bad opticals.

1. It gives fuel to the Free Republic idiot truther-esque peons who're unwitting extremist and alarmist assholes for the whole Right/Liberterian/Ayn Rand 1% crowd. And that includes white supremacists and the whole uber-patriots crowd who're all bottom feeders for any and all anti-Obama nonsense.

2. It allows assholes like Glenn Beck, and Drudge the NRA and the GOP shitheads across the country to turn in it all into some vast conspiracy and fan the flames of it.

3. It establishes an unhealthy precedent for what rights law enforcement should have over law-abiding citizens, not only in a time of crisis, but in normal times, because it creates a sort of superior "hero class" out of anyone who has a badge, and that is ridiculous and dangerous. Those agencies work for the good of the community, not the other way around. And okay Boston, go ahead and applaud your Law Enforcement people, BUT APPLAUD YOURSELVES FIRST.

4. For those who think the "lockdown" helped to nail this guy you should realize that it was it's lifting or easing, that got the tip from the homeowner with the boat. I think the whole city was on the lookout for this guy and with the prevalence of cellphones there's nowhere this kid could've gone without being identified and reported, even if he was some master of disguises.

5. It makes the idea of Posse Comitatus seem like a casual one, and not one based on the idea that powers that be can and will abuse the power. There's a real and important reason why there's such a thing as unlawful search and entry of a person's home.

6. When one 19 year old kid can shut down a whole city like that, I think the wrong people -as in other wannabe stunted fuckheads are noticing that, and seeing that and taking notes.

I'll just re-iterate. Some of the optics here are just terrible for what should be the ideal of a free and open country based on the rule of law (not the rule of "oh, well most people agreed with the lockdown so like what's the problem??" That's mob rule and mob rule is when all ideas of what's "good" and what's "evil" goes out the door and emotionality and irrationality lead to some bad bad badness...)

And for whoever it was who compared the lockdown to a baseball game at Fenway park and how the crowd works so well together to help the Red Sox....REALLY???
posted by Skygazer at 12:18 PM on April 20, 2013 [4 favorites]


"Sens. Graham, McCain say Tsarnaev should be sent to Guantanamo"

I wonder how it is that McCain doesn't understand that due process is part-and-parcel with the institutions that prevent torture, which he notably opposes?

Oh, wait — he's a conservative, he's experienced torture but not being denied due process. Gotcha.
posted by Ivan Fyodorovich at 12:18 PM on April 20, 2013 [1 favorite]


Anybody else think it's possible the younger brother was just hella stoned/tripping the morning of the marathon?

Yes, and on subsequent days as well. I've also been thinking he wasn't even aware he'd perpetrated the bombing, for how else to explain his later oblivious behavior? (Tweeting, going to parties.)

Then at some point shit got real and he had cops shooting at him and figured out how to shoot back.
posted by seemoreglass at 12:21 PM on April 20, 2013


Skygazer, it seems like you absolutely refused to hear and digest what anyone FROM FUCKING BOSTON said about what happened yesterday. If I'm wrong, I'm sorry but that's the read I'm getting.

As someone requested of those making arguments like yours upthread, what would you suggest the LE and people of Boston have done then, just so this would look better in the eyes of Glenn Beck and other assholes?

Just because some GOP dickface might take the situation, as it were, and spin it says nothing about what actually happened. I mean, as we've all learned, they'll do that NO MATTER what happens. It's a no-win situation with people like that and in that event, I'd rather the law enforcement around me do what they did in Boston instead of worrying about what Glenn Beck'll have to say about it.
posted by youandiandaflame at 12:25 PM on April 20, 2013 [20 favorites]


I think this crap from Graham and McCain is a weird sort of attempt to hold the line on just how much the Patriot act and Guantanamo and the other extra-constitutional measures (waterboarding) put in place by Bush/Cheney and the rubber stamp Congress they bent to their will, were entirely unnecessary and overboard, and ultimately ineffectual and destructive to the country.

It strikes me as a sort of pro-active, self-protective, revisionism. It's an attempt to get the jump on the political damage and fall out that would come from a criminal and justice system working perfectly well without a John Yoo or David Addington re-working the constitution to make all sorts of unconstitutional power grabs after 911, somehow, be lawful.
posted by Skygazer at 12:26 PM on April 20, 2013 [1 favorite]


I don't think the cops are a hero class, I think they are my neighbors who had a shitty job to do yesterday, and I'm glad they did it.
posted by Elementary Penguin at 12:27 PM on April 20, 2013 [12 favorites]


Skygazer, BPD/FBI are not responsible for what crazy people think.
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 12:28 PM on April 20, 2013 [4 favorites]


6. When one 19 year old kid can shut down a whole city like that, I think the wrong people -as in other wannabe stunted fuckheads are noticing that, and seeing that and taking notes.

I take your point, and I think a cost-benefit analysis of the police response is important, but I have heard this sentiment elsewhere, and it doesn't really make sense to me. The reason why they "shut down" Watertown, as I understand it, is that the suspect was seen leaving on foot. So in order for "other wannabe stunted fuckheads" to implement this plan, they would have to be somehow able to be seen by police officers, but manage to escape in such a way that they aren't believed to be in a vehicle. I just don't think there's much of an implementable plan here.
posted by dsfan at 12:29 PM on April 20, 2013 [3 favorites]


The sun's out at Fenway. Ortiz is at bat. Solid hit to midfield, RBI. Crowd loses it. For a second, people forget about the last week, and it's just baseball and Boston.
posted by zamboni at 12:32 PM on April 20, 2013 [11 favorites]


1. It gives fuel to the Free Republic idiot truther-esque peons who're unwitting extremist and alarmist assholes for the whole Right/Liberterian/Ayn Rand 1% crowd. And that includes white supremacists and the whole uber-patriots crowd who're all bottom feeders for any and all anti-Obama nonsense.

2. It allows assholes like Glenn Beck, and Drudge the NRA and the GOP shitheads across the country to turn in it all into some vast conspiracy and fan the flames of it.


They would do that anyway. I don't think public safety should be based on what wingnuts are going to say about it later.

4. For those who think the "lockdown" helped to nail this guy you should realize that it was it's lifting or easing, that got the tip from the homeowner with the boat. I think the whole city was on the lookout for this guy and with the prevalence of cellphones there's nowhere this kid could've gone without being identified and reported, even if he was some master of disguises.

And if there wasn't a lockdown, it would have been easier for him to hijack or steal another vehicle and escape among other traffic. It would have been easier for him to hop on a bus or a train and get to a part of the country in an hour or two where finding him would be that much more difficult. We don't know if he had friends or accomplices that he was planning to head to and hide. We don't know if he would have looked for another crowd of people on campus or downtown to set off more incendiary devices. The lockdown wasn't only about catching him, it was about keeping people from congregating in their usual classrooms, workplaces, and train stations. That seems obvious, and I don't know why it's worth putting more people in harms way to try to kiss up to Glenn Beck and his ilk.
posted by oneirodynia at 12:33 PM on April 20, 2013 [5 favorites]


One thing that helped this saga make a teensy bit more sense was that they did not just let the carjacking victim go unharmed; the carjacking victim escaped while they were at the Shell! From an eyewitness account in this Boston Herald article.

Also, I make absolutely zero decisions based on whatever nonsense right wing lunatics think.
posted by bobobox at 12:33 PM on April 20, 2013 [5 favorites]


4. For those who think the "lockdown" helped to nail this guy you should realize that it was it's lifting or easing, that got the tip from the homeowner with the boat.

Alternative: There is no lockdown, and many people just wander around, go shopping, work in their yards, etc. Cops searching for the suspect....what, stop every person on the street? Stop every car and inspect it? Go investigate every call they get from someone reporting a good-faith sighting of a dark-haired man in a white hat? What's your alternative scenario in this situation? If there had been no request for people to stay indoors, what is your proposal? If there had been no lockdown, there's still no way you can say that the boat owner would definitely had searched his boat when he did - especially since the boat owner's boat was not within the boundaries of the locked-down area.
posted by rtha at 12:33 PM on April 20, 2013 [5 favorites]


If we change the way we live our lives for fear of what Glen Beck will do, then Glen Beck will have won. People, don't let Glen Beck win. Live strong, live free, fuck Glen Beck.
posted by benito.strauss at 12:34 PM on April 20, 2013 [23 favorites]


Just because there are dishonest, crazy libertarian arguments that vastly overstate the rate of violent crime in the UK to justify a lack of gun-control, doesn't mean that the very opposite of every particular thing the dishonest, crazy libertarian says is true.

I didn't say "agree with everything linked" but it was a source with no self-interest in overstating America's violence problem. In the UK half of all violent crimes had zero injuries. Their definition of violence is far different from ours, and you've coincidentally picked one of the most violent countries in Europe. Here are a few others:

Murder per 100k
USA 04.2
FIN 01.2
FRA 01.1
GER 00.8
NOR 00.6

Rape per 100k
USA 27.3
NOR 19.2
FRA 16.2
FIN 15.2
GER 09.4

Assault per 100k
USA 807
GER 619
FIN 586
NOR 385
FRA 180


I don't want excuses about heterogenous populations. I want to know why you believe that America doesn't have a violence problem, and why we can't do better with the extra resources we have.
posted by tripping daisy at 12:35 PM on April 20, 2013 [5 favorites]


Anybody else think it's possible the younger brother was just hella stoned/tripping the morning of the marathon?

And/or afterwards. It'd explain the munchie stop.
posted by ChurchHatesTucker at 12:38 PM on April 20, 2013 [1 favorite]


"It makes the idea of Posse Comitatus seem like a casual one,"

What are you on about with Posse Comitatus? I don't remember the Army being called in to keep order. If you're going to be mad about stuff, at least get your terms right — it'll make you seem like less of a crank.
posted by klangklangston at 12:43 PM on April 20, 2013 [2 favorites]


I don't care what the opportunistic tragedy exploiting Right-wing media fucks like "Glenn Becks" say or do, but I think, reasonable people can take the thunder out of these arguments by making these issues and ideas their own, by appropriating them and discussing them and showing some commitment to them.

I'm just sick of people who play this game of "more American than thou" or "more freedom loving than thou" to propagate a plutocracy that is by all evidence (how many Wall Street players who destroyed the US economy in 2008, even get brought up on charges?) is above the law.

Those are the people who pay the "Glenn Becks" very handsomely, for the mindfuckery they impose on the country.
posted by Skygazer at 12:47 PM on April 20, 2013 [1 favorite]


No American should ever say 'thou'.
posted by srboisvert at 12:52 PM on April 20, 2013 [1 favorite]




What are you on about with Posse Comitatus? I don't remember the Army being called in to keep order. If you're going to be mad about stuff, at least get your terms right — it'll make you seem like less of a crank.

WTF?? What difference does it make when most law enforcement agencies now, can request a de facto imposition of martial law by requesting a voluntary "lockdown," and are (increasingly, as well-equipped and armed as the U.S. Army, and are going from house to house feeling entitled to search any house or place of residence they deem fit without a court order.

Underlying these "voluntary" requests is the threat of unpleasantness if a person doesn't comply. Is there not??

It is a super-dangerous expectation or perceived "right" that's established via such precedence. This is not "crank" anything. This is what took place and it needs to be examined and calling it "going on like a crank" is really a shit way to try and silence and dismiss.
posted by Skygazer at 12:58 PM on April 20, 2013 [1 favorite]


"...and you've coincidentally picked one of the most violent countries in Europe"

No, it wasn't coincidental and it wasn't disingenuous, as you're implying. Here's what you wrote:

"...the richest country in the world is also the most violent on every single metric when compared to nations with similar resources"

I only needed one example to disprove that, and because the UK is a notably violent country among our peers, of course I chose it as the one example which disproved your very strong claim.

"I don't want excuses about heterogenous populations. I want to know why you believe that America doesn't have a violence problem, and why we can't do better with the extra resources we have."

"Heterogenous populations"? You're not having an argument with me, you're having an argument that you've clearly already had with people who are not me and with whom I don't share any ideology.

I don't believe either of those things that you mistakenly think I believe and each of my comments to you has included unequivocal assertions that demonstrate this. One of them explicitly listed some things that we could do better to reduce violent crime.

You're not arguing with me. You're arguing with someone else and using me as a proxy.
posted by Ivan Fyodorovich at 1:01 PM on April 20, 2013 [2 favorites]


It is a super-dangerous expectation or perceived "right" that's established via such precedence. This is not "crank" anything. This is what took place and it needs to be examined and calling it "going on like a crank" is really a shit way to try and silence and dismiss.

You're saying the police should not have requested people stay home, and should not have gone door-to-door to look for the bomber, and should not have shut down the public transportation system. What should they have done instead?
posted by dirigibleman at 1:07 PM on April 20, 2013 [4 favorites]


No American should ever say 'thou'.

I disagree; Quakers are a-ok in my book.
posted by hattifattener at 1:08 PM on April 20, 2013


Mass. State Police posting the thermal images of Jahar in the boat on their Twitter account.
posted by (Arsenio) Hall and (Warren) Oates at 1:09 PM on April 20, 2013 [3 favorites]


Quakers don't say 'thou,' as a rule.
posted by ChurchHatesTucker at 1:10 PM on April 20, 2013 [1 favorite]


"You're saying the police should not have requested people stay home, and should not have gone door-to-door to look for the bomber, and should not have shut down the public transportation system. What should they have done instead?"

I pretty much don't at all agree with Skygazer, but this line of criticism of his position is not viable. There's a great many things that we don't allow law enforcement to do, even though it would be more efficient and save lives, because we believe that in the long run other considerations are more important. Usually, civil liberties. Which is the position that Skygazer is arguing from.
posted by Ivan Fyodorovich at 1:11 PM on April 20, 2013 [1 favorite]


Skygazer - I should add to my story that thoughout my travels in the official lockdown/shelter in place zones of Cambridge and Boston yesterday, I encountered several law enforcement officials who looked at me and looked at my bicycle and did not give me any guilt, pressure or aggression over my exercising my freedom of movement. I say this as a 'brown' person who has been subject to profiling in the past.

Law enforcement urged us to stay in our homes. I chose to listen to their urging and made my own choices, based around different needs to live my life while also not interfering with a very important criminal investigation, and every officer treated my choice with respect.

As others have charitably indicated, you do raise some fair points, but the tone of your argument indicates that you are misinterpreting or projecting certain assumptions of the atmosphere in this city that are based more on provocative media images than a true understanding of what each of us choose to do and how we individually decided to handle this crisis.
posted by bl1nk at 1:12 PM on April 20, 2013 [22 favorites]


Wait, who's Jahar?
posted by orrnyereg at 1:12 PM on April 20, 2013


Underlying these "voluntary" requests is the threat of unpleasantness if a person doesn't comply. Is there not??

No. There is not. At no time did the police say (or even so much as imply) "or else."

It wasn't "voluntary" in scare quotes; it was actually honest to god voluntary. Do you honestly think there were a lot of people thinking, "Fuck that, I'd rather go shopping than help you catch the people who bombed this city"?
posted by Sys Rq at 1:13 PM on April 20, 2013 [3 favorites]


orrnyereg, Jahar is what Dzhokhar's friends called him because they had trouble properly pronouncing the first two consonant phonemes in his name.
posted by infinitewindow at 1:15 PM on April 20, 2013


Dzohkhar used the name "Jahar" amongst his friends because it was easier for them to spell.
posted by desjardins at 1:15 PM on April 20, 2013


Wait, who's Jahar?

Jahar = Dzhokhar. Transliteration is funny like that.
posted by Sys Rq at 1:15 PM on April 20, 2013


...and clearly I can't spell it either.
posted by desjardins at 1:16 PM on April 20, 2013 [1 favorite]


You're not arguing with me. You're arguing with someone else and using me as a proxy.

Earlier you stated:

But it's not simply that we're a more violent society than all our peers.

So what is your position? Does America have a violence problem when compared to our peers, or are you using a single (and dubiously defined) statistic to hang on to your position that "it's not simply that we're a more violent society?"

The homicide rate for the United States is four times higher than the UK. And if you would stop and actually read about the differences in definitions of violent crimes, you'd understand that saying the UK is more violent than the US is total nonsense:
In England and Wales, sexual offenses and domestic violence contain a wide range of offenses and make up a significant part of the overall number of their violent crimes.

Sexual offenses include rape, sexual assault, sexual activity with children, soliciting prostitutes (but not prostitution itself), sexual threats, sexual touching and indecent exposure.

Domestic abuse, described as a form of "intimate personal violence," includes the following: non-sexual emotional or financial abuse, threats, physical force, sexual assault and stalking carried out by a current or former partner or other family member.
In America, violent crimes are: "murder/non-negligent manslaughter, forcible rape, robbery and aggravated assault."

As soon as I can find the proper statistics from the reported rate and the survey rate from the home office, since the United States doesn't ask the same questions in their surveys, I can provide more details.
posted by tripping daisy at 1:17 PM on April 20, 2013


You're saying the police should not have requested people stay home, and should not have gone door-to-door to look for the bomber, and should not have shut down the public transportation system. What should they have done instead?

I'm saying it should've been truly voluntary, not come with any implied threat or expectation. And I'm not sure there wasn't some implied threat to not obeying these requests. Did anyone say "Hey, no problem guys, we're all good here, carry on" and get some reply like, Sir/Madam, if we don't get access to your property we will have to get a warrant, because WE MUST search your house?" or maybe something worse like some guy holding an M-16 getting an edge into his voice and being threatening.

These are all questions that need to be discovered, and as of yet haven't been brought out in the open. Everyone, who's ever dealt with a Cop knows they have ways of allowing themselves certain powers that sidestep very real and necessary protections.

But public transport, offices, schools, libraries city services should not have come to a complete halt, if that's indeed what happened. Supposedly UPS was still allowed to make it's rounds unperturbed, and I can't imagine a better escape vehicle than that...but you know Big Brown's gotta make it rounds...etc...

The way this was handled needs to be put under a microscope. Period. When Law Enforcement goes around in camo-gear and 50 punds of kevlar and has access to hundreds of billions of so much new technology and hundreds of billions in so much new firepower and armor due to the "War on Terrurr," that to me, and very obviously, to anyone who puts away their fear, is an occupying army, not your friendly neighborhood policeman or woman.
posted by Skygazer at 1:25 PM on April 20, 2013


Whatever. I didn't have any problem with it and I don't know anyone else who did. I'll save my breath for actual violations of civil liberties, not imagined ones.

Now you can call me Martin Niemöller and we'll have reached the full Godwin and can move on to other topics.
posted by alms at 1:29 PM on April 20, 2013 [5 favorites]


(Martin Niemöller, for those who don't know.)
posted by alms at 1:31 PM on April 20, 2013 [2 favorites]


Bl1nk: I should add to my story that thoughout my travels in the official lockdown/shelter in place zones of Cambridge and Boston yesterday, I encountered several law enforcement officials who looked at me and looked at my bicycle and did not give me any guilt, pressure or aggression over my exercising my freedom of movement. I say this as a 'brown' person who has been subject to profiling in the past.


These are exactly the first person stories of this experience that are in terrible shortage. Thanks for sharing that. This is what's needed, an accounting of the situation from many POV's.

I don't honestly know how BPD/FBI/ and the 20 other federal, state and city agencies in this situation comported themselves towards citizens. They sounded super professional and competent and respectful on the scanner feed, but they know that's a public transmission and they have to be on their best behavior anyway.

And even if they were super cool, there are still deep issues here that need to be looked at and codified, because although I think Boston's got an excellent police force, take a place like Los Angeles or New Orleans or Chicago, and the "lockdown" could've been a bloodbath of law enforcement strong-arming and over-reach, and over-reaction.
posted by Skygazer at 1:34 PM on April 20, 2013 [2 favorites]


MLB teams honor city of Boston (video)
Several MLB teams play "Sweet Caroline" and the Brewers play the "Cheers" theme to show their support for the city of Boston
From the same link:

Neil Diamond leads Fenway in 'Sweet Caroline' sing-along
(no video yet)
"Sweet Caroline" returned to Fenway Park on Saturday afternoon. Everything felt back to normal again.

This time, the 72-year-old Diamond sang his song live.

Diamond, who appeared down the first-base line after the top of the eighth inning, wearing a black blazer and a Red Sox hat, softly sang his song while encouraging the crowd to join along.
posted by Room 641-A at 1:41 PM on April 20, 2013 [5 favorites]


I don't give a shit about baseball, but I would have liked to have been at that Red Sox game today.
posted by desjardins at 1:43 PM on April 20, 2013 [6 favorites]


I think you will find that many of us will agree that the militarization of the police is a problem, and I think most of us would dread days like yesterday being part of the New Normal. However, I think it was unfair of you to accuse people of being docile sheep by choosing to cooperate with the authorities.

Most of the people who I knew and stayed in touch with during the lockdown felt that this was a little overboard but understandable given the possibility of unexplored devices in the city as well as a strong desire to have this resolved as soon as possible. I think that if this situation went on past the evening then there would've been a lot of people outside of Watertown who would have said, "fuck it. I am done. The cops had their shot. I am getting on with my life."

In that regard, I am sure that the decision to lift the lockdown was largely driven by a perceived exhaustion of public patience with having to suspend their lives. As mentioned up thread the police were making annoyed noises about the governor's announcement to lift the lockdown. It wasn't their choice. If this truly were driven as a martial law situation, we would still be in lockdown now probably.

I think you will find, with a deeper analysis of this crisis in the days ahead that there are going to be some interesting lessons to be learned. However, I think perhaps one thing you're overlooking is the role that the media has played in amping up the tension by focusing solely on dramatic images of menacing paramilitary teams and deserted streets.

That was not reality for most of the city yesterday. There were shops open, and some people getting about with their lives. It wasn't the same amount of traffic as a regular weekday but it wasn't a paramilitary curfew. And I think it's unfortunate that it's the armored cars and Blackhawks helicopters that will be more memorable than neighbors and citizens making their own choices between civic responsibility and individual freedom
posted by bl1nk at 1:49 PM on April 20, 2013 [8 favorites]


Here are the results for recorded (not estimated or surveyed) crimes for the US and the UK, multiplying it out so the UK is roughly the same size as the US:

Murders
US 12,664
UK 03,210

Aggravated Assaults / Grievous Bodily Harm
US 751,000
UK 097,400

Forcible rapes of a Female
US 83,400
UK 73,000

Robbery / Theft from the Person
US 354,000
UK 460,000

posted by tripping daisy at 1:50 PM on April 20, 2013


I'm saying it should've been truly voluntary, not come with any implied threat or expectation. And I'm not sure there wasn't some implied threat to not obeying these requests.

How many fucking times do we have to say that's EXACTLY what fucking happened? There was zero implied threat, none, zip, zilch.

I've given a brief account of the nonevent of staying inside, but to add perspective - I have a Small Child and as such am on many mailing lists w/r/t playgroups and such. Each and every one sent a message BEFORE the shelter in place order saying that due to the events of Thurs night, they would be closed all day Friday out of safety concerns for their employees and for the families using the space. The order was all but a formality. Schools were already on vacation. In light of the bombing, many businesses had been running reduced hours.

The order was 100% voluntary, there was zero implied threat. In contrast, in February during the blizzard, Gov Patrick warned that anyone ignoring the ban on travel would be arrested. That absolutely did not happen this time. There was no "if you don't comply, there will be consequences." None. Zip.

Again, how many fucking times do we have to fucking spell this out.
posted by sonika at 1:52 PM on April 20, 2013 [30 favorites]


If you want to worry about eroding civil liberties, I'd try to get in touch with the 60 year old that four robots undressed yesterday morning. I still want to know what that was all about.
posted by Elementary Penguin at 2:03 PM on April 20, 2013 [9 favorites]


Mod note: Chill out with the personal attacks, folks, thanks.
posted by restless_nomad (staff) at 2:18 PM on April 20, 2013 [2 favorites]


Tsarnaev is in stable condition, but unable to speak yet.
posted by ChurchHatesTucker at 2:28 PM on April 20, 2013 [2 favorites]


"Here are the results for ..."

First of all, in each of my responses to you I've emphasized that the US murder rate is astronomical. I've never disputed this. But it does not prove that the US is a correspondingly violent society in general. Please quit mentioning it as if it does.

Second of all, stop and think about what the word simply modifies in the sentence of mine you quote.

Third of all, in one of your four categories the UK rate is 33% higher than the US's; in another the US rate is just 14% higher than the UK's (not insignificant, but given the strength and scope of your claims, and your repeated invocation of the murder rate which is 300% higher in the US than in the UK, it is insufficient for your argument); one category is murder, where I've repeatedly agreed that there's a serious problem in the US; and the final compares US "aggravated assault" with UK "grievous bodily harm" and they're not the same thing. That the US rate you quote is 670% higher than the UK's and twice the difference of the murder statistics should shave given you pause. You're not doing yourself any favors.

We certainly do agree that more resources should be devoted to the reduction of violence in the US and that the US can afford it. And we emphatically agree that the US murder rate is a kind of obscenity. In the campaign you're fighting, I'm not actually your enemy. Apparently, though, you can't tolerate any disagreement from your psychoanalytical diagnosis of a monstrous and uniquely gigantic psychotic love of violence in American culture and will misread and misrepresent in response. Given that, I don't feel that my continuing this exchange with you will be productive in any way.
posted by Ivan Fyodorovich at 2:29 PM on April 20, 2013 [1 favorite]


Bill Maher discusses Boston bombers and religion with Brian Levin, professor of criminal justice and Director of the Center for the Study of Hate & Extremism at California State University.
posted by BobbyVan at 2:30 PM on April 20, 2013


As a non-Bostonian looking in I'm a lot more interested in the experiences of those who were there than I am of those interested in explaining how those Bostonians should feel.
posted by localhuman at 2:32 PM on April 20, 2013 [13 favorites]


Mod note: If you need to talk about how people are handling this conversation, please take it to MeTa.
posted by restless_nomad (staff) at 2:39 PM on April 20, 2013


Aggravated assault:
The FBI’s Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program defines aggravated assault as an unlawful attack by one person upon another for the purpose of inflicting severe or aggravated bodily injury.
Grievous bodily harm:
Grievous bodily harm (often abbreviated to GBH) is a term of art used in English criminal law...

The offence under section 18 is variously referred to as "wounding with intent" or "causing grievous bodily harm with intent". The words "with intent" refer to the specific intent required for this offence.

The offence under section 20 is variously referred to as "unlawful wounding", "malicious wounding" or "inflicting grievous bodily harm."
posted by tripping daisy at 2:42 PM on April 20, 2013


Again, how many fucking times do we have to fucking spell this out.

Until we get to the bottom of things and a very careful microscope is aimed on every aspect of what caused this, how it could've been handled better both before and after. By all parties concerned.
posted by Skygazer at 2:46 PM on April 20, 2013


Maybe give it a rest now Skygazer?

(asked politely and not meant to offend.)
posted by edgeways at 2:50 PM on April 20, 2013 [3 favorites]


Can anyone confirm that the guy was indeed only a mile from the shoot out with police? That doesn't sound right.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 2:51 PM on April 20, 2013


Well gee if we need for the facts to come in then maybe everybody can drop it for awhile.
posted by (Arsenio) Hall and (Warren) Oates at 2:51 PM on April 20, 2013


Can anyone confirm that the guy was indeed only a mile from the shoot out with police? That doesn't sound right.

He was on foot, wasn't he?
posted by Sys Rq at 2:53 PM on April 20, 2013


I live in a high-crime area, serve on an anti-crime committee, and have had more than my share of contact with the police as a result. I have also been in a couple of situations similar to the "shelter in place", and I've had 911 operators (more than once) tell me to stay inside my home during a situation. Because they've helped keep my neighborhood safe, and we have a small, well-run city with an exemplary police force, I'm happy to back them as a general proposition. This doesn't mean I don't have civil liberties concerns, but they tend to fall more into those that actually have torts, i.e.. legally challengeable actions.

Look, I've even had the unpleasant experience of realizing when a conversation with a cop has turned into a conversation with a cop in the sense that maybe you shouldn't be having it.

The one I want to talk about here is the time I received a "phone tree" notification about a shooting incident (turned out to be a BB gun and more like suppression/scare-away fire, but it was in the middle of a street), and attempted to go over to our committee-member's home to get more direct information. Believing the incident was essentially over, I took along my camera, just in case there was anything I could record for committee purposes. My mistake. I actually wandered into an unsecure crime scene where they were waiting for the CSI guys to search for ballistics evidence, as well as still questioning witnesses. One of the cops spoke to me (by name!) and told me to get the hell out of there, but I still wanted to speak to our committee member and when a third walked up as well we decided to wait out of the way, on someone else's private property (and talking to that person, so in a sense with permission). That seemed to be OK although technically I was not doing what the cop had told me. However. The witness questioning in public wrapped up, and more squads arrived, and they blocked off the entire street at that point, now putting us "within" the secured scene even though it was the line, and not us, that had moved. The two of us moved to go knock on our colleague's door, and the same cop who knew me/us suddenly bellowed out of the darkness, STOP RIGHT THERE! At this point he was joined by two other cops and, you know, the fun thing was that they didn't necessarily know us by name and ... their hands were on their holstered weapons. The two of us -- an anti-crime committee, mind you, on speaking terms with the chief of police -- found ourselves stopping and sort of raising our hands as you well might want to do in these situations. We explained our purpose and the cop we knew explained why we couldn't do that right now (active crime scene, evidence contamination) and we understood and left (as it turned out she had in fact been transported to the police HQ for questioning and wasn't even home, not clear if the cop knew that though). Now, was this an imposition on our rights? Technically you could say we'd committed no crime, we were on the public way going to a private residence, and in a sense I would agree with you, but only in the legalistic sense. In the overall situation, though, the cops were working to catch the gun-wielding reprobates, and ultimately they (and another household -- including an ex-federal drugs felon) that was involved in some way the cops never determined) moved out within weeks, making the whole area safer than it had been for a couple of years. For that outcome, I'll take having the cops be a little twitchy, and securing the scene.
posted by dhartung at 2:54 PM on April 20, 2013 [5 favorites]


Fox News at its finest. Front page:
Top senators say Boston bombing suspect, who was captured after hiding in boat in Watertown, Mass., left, and is pictured in an ambulance after being taken into custody, right, should be held as potential enemy combatant, denying him court-appointed attorney under 'Law of War' so investigators can learn about other possible attacks.
Below the fold in the story itself:
Top Republican senators urged President Obama on Saturday to hold the suspect captured in the Boston Marathon bombing as a potential enemy combatant -- denying him a government-appointed attorney and other legal rights under the “Law of War” so investigators can learn about other possible attacks.
posted by tripping daisy at 2:58 PM on April 20, 2013 [1 favorite]


Brandon: 0.7 miles, I'm 100% sure.
posted by bobobox at 2:58 PM on April 20, 2013 [1 favorite]


It's pretty damn frustrating to have been through this and after having other people mischaracterize it and correcting them, having the rejoinder be "well, we need to apply a microscope" which to me reads as "your experience is untrustworthy." Look, if you ask for first person accounts and people give them, don't double down on believing there isn't enough information when it turns out your perceptions were inaccurate.

Yes, I believe in examining the events. I do not believe, however, that discrediting the accounts of those who were here and saying it absolutely was not martial law counts as examination. Maybe it's hard for you to understand that an entire city would comply with an investigation like this, and if so - in the immortal words of Stephen Colbert - you don't know shit about the people of Boston.

Maybe [your city] wouldn't have responded the same way, but for better or worse this is how we dealt with it.
posted by sonika at 2:59 PM on April 20, 2013 [15 favorites]


#bostonstrong
posted by Wordshore at 3:01 PM on April 20, 2013




Fuck yeah: FCC Chair Endorses Red Sox F-Bomb
FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski issued a statement of support for Ortiz on the agency's official Twitter account after the game.

"David Ortiz spoke from the heart at today's Red Sox game. I stand with Big Papi and the people of Boston," Genachowski wrote.
posted by zombieflanders at 3:06 PM on April 20, 2013 [16 favorites]


So today in Boston the Sox played KC. The crowds leaving were on the quite side, so either the Sox lost or people are feeling more introspective than usual. (I'd guess the former.)

Boylston Street, where the finishing line is, is still closed down as a crime scene starting at Hereford (about 3 blocks to the west). It is completely empty, zombie movie empty, and I have never seen it like that, even at 3 a.m. on a Wednesday night. There were about 100 people and 3-4 cops at the barricade, neither very loud nor very solemn, just kind of looking down Boylston. I expected there to be a lot of flowers but there weren't — I'm guessing those will come later when people can actually access the site. But there were an awful lot of 3x5 white index cards taped to the barricades. They had messages on them like "Boston Strong", "No more hurting", and "May God make you pay".

The cashier at my taqueria said she lives in Watertown, right in the middle of the zone. She heard the news before leaving that night, and so she went and stayed at the house of her boss, still in Watertown but not in the zone. She said if she hadn't caught the news she would have just walked home as usual, right in to the middle of the whole thing.
posted by benito.strauss at 3:07 PM on April 20, 2013


I pretty much don't at all agree with Skygazer, but this line of criticism of his position is not viable.

what's not viable is people who carp about what was done but can't offer an alternative solution - i'm not sure i'm totally comfortable with how this was done, but i'm having trouble coming up with that alternative

and that does matter
posted by pyramid termite at 3:08 PM on April 20, 2013 [1 favorite]


In the overall situation, though, the cops were working to catch the gun-wielding reprobates, and ultimately they (and another household -- including an ex-federal drugs felon) that was involved in some way the cops never determined) moved out within weeks, making the whole area safer than it had been for a couple of years. For that outcome, I'll take having the cops be a little twitchy, and securing the scene.

If you were an ex-federal drugs felon, you might feel differently.
posted by ChurchHatesTucker at 3:11 PM on April 20, 2013 [1 favorite]


FFS, tripping daisy, read those two definitions you just now provided as proof. Go on, I'll wait. They're right there in your comment.

...

Still confused? Okay, pay special attention to whether or not actual serious injuries were inflicted.

AA in the US just requires an assault to any degree in combination with the intent to do serious harm. GBH in the UK requires an actual serious injury and the intention to do so. It is a much higher bar.

And the FBI definition is a subset of how its defined in most US jurisdictions. They usually include numerous things that don't even require any intent or injury. For someone whose argument has depended upon emphasizing the difficulty in comparing violent crimes across different national legal regimes, this error is egregious.

I really and truly am unhappy about being snide and impatient with you, but you're making mistakes you really have no excuse to be making, you're arguing against positions I've explicitly disavowed, we basically agree in general (I never said that the US didn't have a higher violent crime rate than the average of its peers!), and strongly agree in the particular case of murder, which you care about the most. If you're this unequipped to argue competently and in good-faith with someone who mostly agrees with you, then I'm sorry to say that I'm beginning to worry that you're counter-productive to the goals that we both share and care greatly about. That makes me irritable.

And I'm tired, too. That's probably the larger portion. I apologize for that.
posted by Ivan Fyodorovich at 3:13 PM on April 20, 2013 [1 favorite]


Brandon: 0.7 miles, I'm 100% sure.

That doesn't jibe with reports that he was just outside the police cordon. Not saying you're, just trying to figure out what happened.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 3:15 PM on April 20, 2013


Mod note: Skygazer, I am now telling you in public rather than asking you in private to knock it the fuck off.
posted by restless_nomad (staff) at 3:15 PM on April 20, 2013 [8 favorites]


New York Times: Inquiry Shifts to Suspect’s Russian Trip
The significance of the trip was magnified late Friday when the F.B.I. disclosed in a statement that in 2011 “a foreign government” — now acknowledged by officials to be Russia — asked for information about Tamerlan, “based on information that he was a follower of radical Islam and a strong believer, and that he had changed drastically since 2010 as he prepared to leave the United States for travel to the country’s region to join unspecified underground groups.”
posted by BobbyVan at 3:17 PM on April 20, 2013


I wouldn't mind seeing the strength of event-specific, crowd-sourced surveillance make the argument for always-on law enforcement surveillance weaker.

OK Glass, RIP Privacy: The Democratization Of Surveillance
posted by homunculus at 3:18 PM on April 20, 2013


I'm already sick of the "AMERICAN STRONG" attitude that's so prevalent in any medium that's talking about this. I had the misfortune of listening to the Fox Five while at my parents' house and the mannequin woman on it actually said something to the effect that we've always been at war with radical Islam, and then said how America was so strong and brave and cool. I don't think I can take however long it's going to take for people to throw their Chinese-made American flags in the garbage as the wave of patriotism subsides.
posted by codacorolla at 3:21 PM on April 20, 2013 [2 favorites]


Um, aren't there Muslims who are America Strong, too?
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 3:23 PM on April 20, 2013 [3 favorites]


Tell it to the mannequin.
posted by codacorolla at 3:24 PM on April 20, 2013


Boston strong, I get. But yeah, the "USA!" and American flags. Um. This guy was a citizen. He has equal claim to shout "USA!" So. AWKWARD.
posted by sonika at 3:25 PM on April 20, 2013 [16 favorites]


sonika, not to discount your experience, but as far as the civil liberties questions go I'm actually not interested in Bostonians' personal experiences. I'm interested in knowing what decisions were made, under what authority, throughout the 24-hour period that ended with the suspect's capture last night. We have a history of tossing civil liberties aside in response to a crisis and then not going back and setting things right after the fact. How Boston's citizens and local law enforcement dealt with the crisis isn't really the point (in spite of skygazer's button-pushing).
posted by headnsouth at 3:25 PM on April 20, 2013 [3 favorites]


Fair enough, I was responding to a request up thread that was *specifically asking for first hand experiences* as being valuable to putting the situation in context. Wanting to know the legal parameters, I agree, is a different discussion entirely and was not in any way what I was trying to address.
posted by sonika at 3:33 PM on April 20, 2013 [3 favorites]


headnsouth, Skygazer specifically asked for first-person on-the-ground experiences. You may not be as interested in them, but the request for them was part of this discussion, and I don't think you can fault sonika for responding.
posted by KathrynT at 3:34 PM on April 20, 2013 [7 favorites]


Brandon, the cordon wasn't that big. Compare image 7 to bobobox's map.
posted by Elementary Penguin at 3:36 PM on April 20, 2013


The crowds leaving were on the quite side, so either the Sox lost or people are feeling more introspective than usual.

They won, actually. Tried to lose at the very end, but couldn't quite pull that off.

Boston strong, I get. But yeah, the "USA!" and American flags. Um. This guy was a citizen. He has equal claim to shout "USA!" So. AWKWARD.

Yeah, I've been thinking about Ortiz' comment ("our fuckin' city") all afternoon. Ortiz is, after all, an immigrant, came to the US in 1992 (and is now an American citizen). So, really, he has a lot in common with the bombers. If Dzhokhar had not been to Fenway at some point, I'd be shocked. While the older brother may not have been fully integrated into American society, the younger one certainly was It was his fuckin' city, too.
posted by anastasiav at 3:36 PM on April 20, 2013 [3 favorites]


Um, aren't there Muslims who are America Strong, too?

This guy was a citizen. He has equal claim to shout "USA!" So. AWKWARD.


I don't get why you guys don't get this. According to a fucking terrifying proportion of the US population which for some reason other than "I refuse to watch Fox" you guys don't get, the definition of "American" is as follows:

1/ Born in the USA
2/ Speaks English as a first (and preferably only) language
3/ Is a Christian or at least professes to be
4/ Is white, or okay, black but certainly not Latino or God forbid, some weird shade of Indian or Arab or you know, Over There

And these are not even the whacky sub-set who also think it means owning guns and a fundamentalist Christian constitution and that Obama is a Saudi plant. The people above are not crazy and are not easily dismissed as a small minority. They are the totally normal everyday people giving Rush and Glenn and Ann their ratings.
posted by DarlingBri at 3:37 PM on April 20, 2013 [1 favorite]


DarlingBri, I don't ever, ever watch Fox. My definition of American is none of those things. The people who do believe those things do not have ownership over the word America, or strong.

And yes, the living suspect is an American citizen. That doesn't take anything away from the pride in American law enforcement.
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 3:40 PM on April 20, 2013 [5 favorites]


"Um, aren't there Muslims who are America Strong, too?"

You know, I've never articulated this before, but I can say honestly, without any hyperbole whatsoever, that I've developed the strong impression that for a large portion of the American population, being a Muslim is prima facie evidence that someone isn't and cannot be an American, regardless of status.

Furthermore, because most of these people live in places where they don't ever meet Muslims, they're able to form an impression that the presentation of patriotic American Muslims in the media is a kind of tokenism, a liberal lie, like they probably feel about television shows that portray happy gay families.

I know it surely is taken for granted here that there's many things about the TV show Homeland that are problematic. But I think that how it portrays Brody's faith is a good example. The show (showrunner, writers, etc) probably thinks that it's portraying him sympathetically in this respect, in the same sense that his daughter is sympathetic to it; but, in the practical reality of contemporary American culture, how it actually functions for most is that it's like a black hat in an old western.

I'm finding the discussion in the media about this with these guys — given what little I've seen because I don't have the stomach for it — revealing and disgusting because it's all about the Islamic religious fundamentalism and almost not at all about ethnic nationalism, which is almost certainly the bigger factor. Which has also been the case with how almost all insurgents in both Irag and Afghanistan have been characterized. There's no doubt that religious radicalism plays a strong role in all these cases; but the focus on that with the exclusion of nationalism reveals a lot about how Americans and our government think about both these things.
posted by Ivan Fyodorovich at 3:41 PM on April 20, 2013 [3 favorites]


Religious radicalism plays very well to the segment of the market who are themselves religious radicals.
posted by restless_nomad at 3:43 PM on April 20, 2013 [16 favorites]


the definition of "American" is as follows:

So, Ortiz is christian, but meets none of your other criteria. And there he was, leading the USA chants at Fenway. Does he get some kind of special sports hero pass?
posted by anastasiav at 3:44 PM on April 20, 2013 [1 favorite]


Terrorist Hunt Sends America Over the Edge (New Yorker)
“What terrorists want is to terrify people,” Adam writes. “Americans always oblige.” I don’t think that’s quite right. I’d bet the American people, if given the opportunity, are as capable as the Israelis and the Brits of withstanding the occasional deadly attack by extremist groups or individuals, and the knowledge that some of the perpetrators are still out there, somewhere. (When it comes to dealing with attacks by deranged individuals, which often take far more than three lives, Americans have already had plenty of practice at shaking their heads and going on with their lives.)

It’s the authorities and the media that tend to go a little crazy, and their actions reinforce each other. In the knowledge that virtually every television network, news organization, and news Web site in the country is providing rolling (and often unreliable) coverage, which governor, or mayor, or President is going to say, “No, actually, I don’t think we need to shut down Amtrak. Just post some extra cops at South Station and Back Bay. Make sure everybody is searched.” It’s much easier to play it safe and lock down an entire city. But the result, as Yaakov noted, is that “a single terrorist can disrupt so many lives and possibly more important—the American way of life.”
posted by Rumple at 3:44 PM on April 20, 2013 [5 favorites]


According to a fucking terrifying proportion of the US population which for some reason other than "I refuse to watch Fox" you guys don't get, the definition of "American" is as follows:

Oh, you can fulfill 1)-4) and not be good enough for those people. God forbid you're the child of an immigrant.

So, Ortiz is christian, but meets none of your other criteria. And there he was, leading the USA chants at Fenway. Does he get some kind of special sports hero pass?

The point was a significant portion of the country would insist to your face (or to mine anyway) that Ortiz isn't American.
posted by hoyland at 3:45 PM on April 20, 2013 [2 favorites]


Brandon: Hmm, I've been trying to sort this out. The Franklin address is actually within the area cordoned off as per the red outline map here as far as I can tell. So the red line was the perimeter but I believe they were focusing door-to-door efforts most thoroughly in the section bordered by Mt. Auburn, School St., Bigelow and Arsenal. That is conjecture on my part though. They did keep referring to the 20 block region they were searching and if you try to count those residential blocks within the streets I mentioned it is sort of 20ish.

What makes me 100% sure of 0.7 mi. is that the Dexter/Laurel intersection was confirmed for me by eyewitnesses on that corner.
posted by bobobox at 3:48 PM on April 20, 2013 [1 favorite]


"I'm just sick of people who play this game of "more American than thou" or "more freedom loving than thou" to propagate a plutocracy that is by all evidence (how many Wall Street players who destroyed the US economy in 2008, even get brought up on charges?) is above the law."

See, the point at which I call bullshit there is that you're implying people here are playing "more American than thou" IN ORDER TO "propagate a plutocracy." That's nonsense, and Wall Street in 2008 is irrelevant (especially since you're arguing with people who generally would have supported more charges for Wall Street folks involved in the financial crash).

It's a fucking straw man, and just because you've managed to whip yourself into a breathless shiver over this doesn't mean it's anything worth treating seriously.

"WTF?? What difference does it make when most law enforcement agencies now, can request a de facto imposition of martial law by requesting a voluntary "lockdown," and are (increasingly, as well-equipped and armed as the U.S. Army, and are going from house to house feeling entitled to search any house or place of residence they deem fit without a court order."

Uh, because "Posse Comitatus" is an actual thing and means bringing in federal troops (and the law was to remove federal obstacles from terrorizing black people, actually), and this wasn't martial law, and there were pretty clear exigent circumstances for a search. Using the wrong words is a pretty decent signal that you don't know what you're talking about.
posted by klangklangston at 3:48 PM on April 20, 2013 [5 favorites]


the F.B.I. disclosed in a statement that in 2011 “a foreign government” — now acknowledged by officials to be Russia — asked for information about Tamerlan,

The subsequent interviews by the FBI were what Tamerian's mother described as counseling by the FBI according to some earlier reports. I kept stumbling over that word. It now appears that she was speaking in Russian and the word was translated wrong-- she said "monitored" by the FBI.

Of course in the same interview she said her children must be innocent because they tell her everything and I was trying that conversation on in my mind: "Hey Ma, hows Canada? Look, me and Dzokhar blew some people up. You might be hearing some stuff on the news." "Yeah? Oh, you boys and your bombs! What am I going to do with you? Wait til your father hears about this!"
posted by Secret Life of Gravy at 3:49 PM on April 20, 2013 [2 favorites]


Oh, you can fulfill 1)-4) and not be good enough for those people. God forbid you're the child of an immigrant.

Or the child of a Kenyan national.
posted by UbuRoivas at 3:52 PM on April 20, 2013 [9 favorites]


4/ Is white, or okay, black but certainly not Latino or God forbid, some weird shade of Indian or Arab or you know, Over There

I know you think this is funny and/or helpful, but it's really not. I'm really tired of even sarcastic/ironic comments about how I don't belong in the US or I am a weird shade.

Seriously, I really hate this and it is not helpful.
posted by sweetkid at 3:53 PM on April 20, 2013 [13 favorites]


I've developed the strong impression that for a large portion of the American population, being a Muslim is prima facie evidence that someone isn't and cannot be an American, regardless of status.

Sure, there people like that. And 70 years ago they would have ruled out Jews, and 120 years ago they would have ruled out Catholics. I'm not going to cede "American" to them, and I hope no-one else does either.
posted by benito.strauss at 3:58 PM on April 20, 2013 [10 favorites]




"The point was a significant portion of the country would insist to your face (or to mine anyway) that Ortiz isn't American."

The underlying and endemic nature of this was revealed earlier, right here on MeFi in one of these two threads, when someone critically quoted a newscaster who had cautioned, with regard to the videos and photos of the suspects, that from them we can't tell whether they are Americans or not.

This, of course, is quite true. But the criticism was that the context and presentation implied that it might have been possible to determine whether they were Americans on this basis. (And the difference between it being true in one sense and false in the other, and that implied "...but it might have otherwise been possible", is a very interesting case in linguistic pragmatics.)

It's illustrative of the deeper problem because a number of progressive mefites noted that it took them a few beats to recognize what was wrong with the statement, and not in the sense that "it's literally true and so there there is no problem".

This is privilege, of course. A certain minority which is privileged in various categories is the model American, the archetype. For most of us, there's flexibility in deviation, but we're still working from that model as the default. That we do so whispers to us that there's one group that we can reliably identify as American because they fit that model. Conversely, the more deviations from that model there are, the more question there is about the affiliation. Most of us, when thinking about it in any directed way, err in the direction of inclusivity, progressives probably more so than most. But some err in the exclusive direction; and for them some deviations are markers for prima facie non-American status.

Per DarlingBri's comment, I think latino ethnicity is ambiguous even for that exclusionary group. But it weighs heavily and when combined with a few more clues, can act as a disqualifier.

But Islam for the exclusionary group is now a disqualifier all by itself, I think. That's what it's become. And not necessarily, and it's not always been so. Before 9/11, it was a strongly suggestive marker, like Hinduism, say. But it wasn't definitive. Conservative war-mongering xenophobia made it so. (Admittedly, the mass murder of several thousand people in a horrifying, shocking national tragedy gave it a huge push in that direction. But it still didn't have to have become what it's become, in terms of significance in the American imagination.)
posted by Ivan Fyodorovich at 4:09 PM on April 20, 2013


From Artw's link:
At least two such mini-bombs have been sent by a group that calls itself the Anticlerical Pro Sex Toys Group [...]The anarchists, who use other names such as the Artisans Club for New Uses for Coffee, claimed to have made a bomb out of an espresso coffee machine packed with gunpowder and shrapnel that was planted at a bank branch.
Oh boy. Snarky anarchists. That's just what we need.
posted by Secret Life of Gravy at 4:13 PM on April 20, 2013 [1 favorite]


Hinduism is a strongly suggestive marker that someone is not an American?
posted by sweetkid at 4:14 PM on April 20, 2013 [1 favorite]


Ortiz is, after all, an immigrant, came to the US in 1992 (and is now an American citizen). So, really, he has a lot in common with the bombers.

what.

Just... what? All immigrants have something in common with the bombers? I have two eyes, two ears and a nose, I guess I have something in common with them too? Or are you implying that immigrants are more likely to be bom.... no, that can't be right, so I have no idea what you're implying.
posted by desjardins at 4:15 PM on April 20, 2013 [4 favorites]


I know you think this is funny and/or helpful, but it's really not. I'm really tired of even sarcastic/ironic comments about how I don't belong in the US or I am a weird shade.

In absolutely no way do I think that was funny and I'd be appalled at anyone who found it funny. I was not attempting to be funny or sarcastic or ironic in the least; I was attempting to be factual in yes, explaining how a proportion of how the US population sees things. In case it was unclear, it certainly isn't how I see things.

My definition of American is none of those things.... And yes, the living suspect is an American citizen.

I agree, completely. I was articulating a point of view, not espousing it.
posted by DarlingBri at 4:17 PM on April 20, 2013 [3 favorites]


sweetkid, remember that Sikhs, Hindus, Jains, and other non-Christian, non-white group members have been repeatedly targeted by violence since 9/11.

And then I refer you to obviously common joke tropes regarding convenience store managers and cab drivers.
posted by dhartung at 4:17 PM on April 20, 2013


All immigrants have something in common with the bombers?

In the eyes of what Ivan Fyodorovich just defined as the exclusionary group, yes. Quite a bit.
posted by ChurchHatesTucker at 4:19 PM on April 20, 2013


but it's not fine to shut down the whole infrastructure of a city: Trains, buses, airport, all schools, businesses on and on it went, with the only people visible on streets to be guys in paramilitary gear holding assault rifles. bad bad opticals.

Just as a point of order, the public transport services (and pretty much everything else) were not shut down by police order as the police don't have authority to do that. This was a series of independent decisions by the managers of those agencies/facilities, who took into account the request by police, the likely low utilization rate anyway that day due to general anxiety, and their own unwillingness to risk having their own facilities end up somehow impacted by/involved in further attacks with further possible casualties. These were logical, independent decisions, not the imposition of martial law. So let's be clear about that.

I am sure that the decision to lift the lockdown was largely driven by a perceived exhaustion of public patience with having to suspend their lives.

I actually think it was a policiing decision as well. It's true that they recognized that no, you can't keep everyone indoors forever. But I also think they realized that they were at a stalemate. They knew the suspect was either holed up somewhere or already dead from bleeding out or had, perhaps gotten away (though they also knew that was really unlikely). So I think they decided that at that juncture, it would be helpful to get the eyes back on the street and see what people could turn up. Given that he was still interested in emptying dozens of rounds of ammunition toward people once he was discovered, that was a risky call and we're lucky that his discovery didn't go down a different way and no further people were shot, but it did flush him out.
posted by Miko at 4:20 PM on April 20, 2013 [4 favorites]


In absolutely no way do I think that was funny and I'd be appalled at anyone who found it funny. I was not attempting to be funny or sarcastic or ironic in the least; I was attempting to be factual in yes, explaining how a proportion of how the US population sees things. In case it was unclear, it certainly isn't how I see things.


I understand that you don't feel those things yourself, but repeating things jerks say isn't helpful, is my point. Your comment seemed really cutesy/ironic to me and I'm really tired of seeing those sorts of things even in a "this is what the backward hoi polloi think about you! isn't it a shame" sense. Is my point.
posted by sweetkid at 4:23 PM on April 20, 2013 [10 favorites]


What are you on about with Posse Comitatus? I don't remember the Army being called in to keep order. If you're going to be mad about stuff, at least get your terms right — it'll make you seem like less of a crank.

Posse Comitatus is still a thing? I was under the impression that Northcom killed it in 2002.
posted by AElfwine Evenstar at 4:31 PM on April 20, 2013 [1 favorite]


sweetkid: "I know you think this is funny and/or helpful, but it's really not. I'm really tired of even sarcastic/ironic comments about how I don't belong in the US or I am a weird shade.

Seriously, I really hate this and it is not helpful.
"

I think what I find helpful is that it's a reminder that yes, these opinions are held by people all over the U.S. I don't think it's ironic and I don't think it's sarcastic. I think it's a reminder that there's people with terrible opinions that go unchallenged and reinforced by their peers. It's absolutely shitty that people make you out to be un-American because of your skin color, or that I get the same kind of nonsense about being an atheist.

It's an admonition that I can't get too comfortable by surrounding myself with like thinkers, and that when somebody says some of this stuff, I'm required to challenge it rather than just say "well my goodness I just don't know how somebody could think that."
posted by boo_radley at 4:31 PM on April 20, 2013 [4 favorites]


I think what I find helpful is that it's a reminder that yes, these opinions are held by people all over the U.

I feel like the rhetoric sweetkid is objecting to really is not a great fit for MetaFilter. Partly because the irony doesn't always come through, and partly because it's speaking in someone else's voice and characterizing their views for them when they're not even here, instead of just making your own observations about the opinions you encounter or see evidence of. I know I've done this too, but I get why it is getting old and not helping that much here. I don't really have a lot of trouble remembering that there are people whose opinions these are, unfortunately.
posted by Miko at 4:34 PM on April 20, 2013 [6 favorites]


Your comment seemed really cutesy/ironic to me and I'm really tired of seeing those sorts of things even in a "this is what the backward hoi polloi think about you! isn't it a shame" sense. Is my point.

Again, my comment was dead serious. I don't really know where you want me to go with this.

I don't really have a lot of trouble remembering that there are people whose opinions these are, unfortunately.

My comment was specifically aimed at, and began with quotes from, the two posters who clearly DO have a lot of trouble remembering that there are people who hold these opinions.

In any case, my intent was not to cause discord. I am glad I got to share the exchange of several thousand comments with you guys while this all went down in Boston but I'm going to bow out now. Sleep easy, Boston.
posted by DarlingBri at 4:40 PM on April 20, 2013


Posse Comitatus is still a thing? I was under the impression that Northcom killed it in 2002.
posted by AElfwine Evenstar at 7:31 PM


Your jokes about the fall of the rule in America are especially silly given that, when given a perfectly viable opportunity for martial law on the streets of an American city, that didn't happen. It's almost as if, even though the overreaction to 9/11 is a problem, it's actually not the end of the Republic.

So yes, posse comitatus is still a thing; if you thought it was no longer a thing you were wrong.
posted by Bulgaroktonos at 4:43 PM on April 20, 2013 [3 favorites]


All immigrants have something in common with the bombers?

I would argue that, yes, for most of them they have an experience of America in common with each other that is very different from the experience of America that non-immigrants have. Further, as Ortiz is a person who is a non-native English speaker and a person of "color" (whatever that means), his experience of what it means to be an American has many more elements in common with the life experiences of the bombers than it does with, say mine.
posted by anastasiav at 4:50 PM on April 20, 2013


"All immigrants have something in common with the bombers? "

Yes, in the cluster of experiences that are common to American immigrants, which are surely not trivial. Definitive? Of course not.

"In the eyes of what Ivan Fyodorovich just defined as the exclusionary group, yes. Quite a bit."

Well, for that group it is definitive. But anastatiav was merely making the point that I just made.

And it bears some elucidation because it actually goes to what sweetkid and desjardins are complaining about — it's ironic and revealing that in the context of people seeing this as "we" Americans banding together to defend ourselves from outsiders they'd be comfortable with Ortiz because if this act of terror had been committed by someone who fit that narrow model of what a "real" American is (say, a right-wing Idahoan who carries around a copy of the Declaration of Independence in his wallet), then the tenor of this in-group solidarity would have been different, it wouldn't have the strong connection between defending ourselves as Americans from outsiders. Therefore, the status of immigrant signals to the collective American psyche a more tenuous affiliation. As do some religious affiliations.

The American I want to live in, the America I can be persuaded to be patriotic for, is the America that welcomes immigrants and celebrates their contributions, not distrusts and rejects them; the America that guarantees the freedom of faith, and not "America is a Christian nation"; indeed, the America that has no official national language, not the America that outlaws bilingual education.

But, sadly, I long ago realized that my version of America is a fantasy, part wishful delusion and part public-school propogandistic lie. It bears little resemblance to the America-that-is.
posted by Ivan Fyodorovich at 4:59 PM on April 20, 2013 [2 favorites]


when given a perfectly viable opportunity for martial law on the streets of an American city, that didn't happen

Did you not hear about the day-long lockdown?
posted by gerryblog at 5:01 PM on April 20, 2013 [1 favorite]


Skygazer it seems Bostonians, and most Americans for that matter, are not in an emotional state that lends to reasoned and intelligent debate about the very important concerns you raise. I suggest waiting until the patriotic zeal and group think has had a time to dissipate.

So yes, posse comitatus is still a thing; if you thought it was no longer a thing you were wrong.

I suggest you read up on what posse comitatus is and what Northcom is and get back to me.
posted by AElfwine Evenstar at 5:02 PM on April 20, 2013


and we are all captures in a boat that resembles little what our hopes would be
posted by localhuman at 5:03 PM on April 20, 2013


Did you not hear about the day-long lockdown?

Oh god, we're not going to do this AGAIN are we? gerryblog, read above of the experiences of people who were actually in the city at the time.
posted by anastasiav at 5:03 PM on April 20, 2013 [4 favorites]


So I think they decided that at that juncture, it would be helpful to get the eyes back on the street and see what people could turn up. Given that he was still interested in emptying dozens of rounds of ammunition toward people once he was discovered, that was a risky call and we're lucky that his discovery didn't go down a different way and no further people were shot, but it did flush him out.

That was my immediate sense, indeed, what I felt on hearing the police chief (?) say that they had accomplished "60 to 70% of what we needed this to do" -- that they wanted to change the dynamics before night fell again, possibly prompting him to move. I would be very interested in hearing whether any residents were given different instructions, so to speak, from what the public presser indicated.

Really, I had expected them to say they had developed during the investigation reason to believe he had fled the area, but they very much did not say that at all.

I will agree with others and re-emphasize that the lockdown prevented him from having the opportunity to, say, carjack anyone else, or engage in a firefight with some isolated cops.

Did you not hear about the day-long lockdown?

You need to read the conversation about this that's been going back and forth since 7am. It was not martial law, despite attempts to portray it as such.
posted by dhartung at 5:03 PM on April 20, 2013 [4 favorites]


I was relieved to get a text from a friend of mine, mid-"lockdown", informing me that one of our favorite bars in Harvard Square was still open.
posted by feloniousmonk at 5:08 PM on April 20, 2013 [1 favorite]


Harvard Square is just down the street from where all of this went down. Some martial law.
posted by feloniousmonk at 5:09 PM on April 20, 2013 [1 favorite]


Don Cherry's outfit this evening was entirely Bruins-themed.
posted by one more dead town's last parade at 5:12 PM on April 20, 2013


"Skygazer it seems Bostonians, and most Americans for that matter, are not in an emotional state that lends to reasoned and intelligent debate about the very important concerns you raise."

I don't think that's quite fair. For example, I don't have any trouble seeing how something like this "shelter in place" in conjunction with house-to-house searches, as used for law-enforcement purposes, could be a tempting slippery slope for LE and their superiors to slide down. If there's one thing that is fully, indisputably demonstrated, the authorities and LE will use their powers to greatest tolerable (not legal) degree they can manage and then some. There's reason to be concerned about setting precedents.

But there's something about Skygazer's comments that became increasingly hyperbolic, antagonistic, and insensitive about the lived experiences of those on the scene. You're right that there's a particularly heightened sensitivity on their side; but you're wrong insofar as you're suggesting that the problems in this discussion are all attributable to them.
posted by Ivan Fyodorovich at 5:13 PM on April 20, 2013 [3 favorites]


The whole martial law vs. not martial law is a stupid argument. Regardless of whether it was a textbook example of martial law is irrelevant to whether it is a dangerous precedent to set. If this is how we respond every time an IED blows up we are going to be in for a shitty century.

On preview: You're right that there's a particularly heightened sensitivity on their side; but you're wrong insofar as you're suggesting that the problems in this discussion are all attributable to them.

Fair enough. I guess there were some comments that were deleted, or I just wasn't reading as well as I should have.
posted by AElfwine Evenstar at 5:18 PM on April 20, 2013 [1 favorite]


I don't want to relitigate a discussion people are obviously sick of. But is there anyone in the US for whom a day-long request to shelter in place while police do house-to-house sweeps would have seemed like normal, unremarkable civil procedure two days ago? Whether or not it's technically "martial law" is pedantry; either way it registers another shift in the way we respond both to terror and to legal authority. I agree that it seems like an utterly terrible precedent to set.
posted by gerryblog at 5:23 PM on April 20, 2013 [1 favorite]


If this is how we respond every time an IED blows up we are going to be in for a shitty century.

This was the first time this a "lockdown" occurred on this scale. Bit soon to be pulling the panic button.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 5:24 PM on April 20, 2013 [2 favorites]


Honestly, it really doesn't seem like the lockdown wasn't for the explosives. The lockdown was for the fugitive who was pretty happy to shoot anyone and throw explosives around like they were confetti.
posted by Jilder at 5:26 PM on April 20, 2013 [9 favorites]


There's a big difference between being asked to stay home and being forced to stay home. The distinction is not mere pedantry.
posted by Area Man at 5:30 PM on April 20, 2013 [17 favorites]


If this is how we respond every time an IED blows up we are going to be in for a shitty century.

But ... it wasn't. It was only imposed after these guys held a shootout with explosives -- which sounds more like something out of a Rodriguez movie than reality -- in a residential neighborhood.

The communication problem here is that the law -- any law -- is discrete and often binary, that is, OK/!OK, rather than fitting the observed gradations of real life. Indeed, one of the most difficult applications of the law is in terms of civil rights. We can say it's OK to refuse to answer questions by the police, but we can't say that it's not OK to be questioned by the police ever. We can say it's wrong for the police to use force on certain occasions, but not others, and yet the decision is always down to the cop on the ground making the split-second choice based on factors that may or may not seem reasonable in retrospect. (This may change as more helmet cams come into usage.) The point is that reality is ambiguous, fast-moving, and sometimes incoherent.

Area Man: although, it would seem, the even more concerning violation of rights would presumably be the evacuation and search of individual residences. If there was one occupant of any of those homes who raised an objection, however, I have not heard it.
posted by dhartung at 5:33 PM on April 20, 2013 [2 favorites]


San Fransisco (certainly not the only city in the U.S. to have experienced this) has had some number of "suspicious package" things over the years that have closed this or that BART or MUNI station or prevented access to a particular block or intersection for some number of hours. So no, cities are not just Closing All The Things over this. And that's not why Boston-area governments closed things.
posted by rtha at 5:38 PM on April 20, 2013 [3 favorites]


I agree, the searches are more problematic and the exclusionary rule wouldn't work in that instance to discourage unconstitutional searches. I would like to know if anyone didn't consent.
posted by Area Man at 5:39 PM on April 20, 2013 [1 favorite]


Don Cherry's outfit this evening was entirely Bruins-themed.

Christ, haven't the good people of Boston suffered enough?
posted by tonycpsu at 5:39 PM on April 20, 2013 [15 favorites]


"This was the first time this a "lockdown" occurred on this scale. Bit soon to be pulling the panic button."

I want to agree with that, but the thing about unique exceptions is that they're unique exceptions until they're not. Now is the time to at least raise the issue because "wait until it's a problem" is competing with "once it's a problem, it's very difficult to solve".
posted by Ivan Fyodorovich at 5:41 PM on April 20, 2013 [1 favorite]


If this is how we respond every time an IED blows up we are going to be in for a shitty century.

Except that it wasn't in response to an IED blowing up. That happened on Monday, and the response to that was to figure out who was responsible. The "lockdown" was in response to the manhunt after the firefight- a hunt for a suspect who may have been wearing explosives, according to the thinking at the time. It's not the first time a neighborhood has been in lockdown in response to a fleeing suspect, but I can't google for any examples right now due to recent events.
posted by oneirodynia at 5:42 PM on April 20, 2013 [8 favorites]


Humorous derail:

When I first saw pictures of Don Cherry I'd assumed he'd be like a character in a Christopher Guest movie. Oh, how sadly wrong I was.
posted by pxe2000 at 5:44 PM on April 20, 2013 [2 favorites]


wasn't the lockdown also in part to keep innocent people from getting shot in a firefight? Frankly it's still amazing to me the kid was taken in alive. After Thursday night's craziness including a murdered cop...
posted by sweetkid at 5:45 PM on April 20, 2013 [3 favorites]


oneirodynia, I cited my own experience above, for what that's worth. Scale quite a bit smaller, but effectively similar in nature. Nor is it the first time we've had one in our neighborhood.

School and even campus lockdowns, I feel compelled to point out, have become so commonplace as to be considered best practices nowadays.
posted by dhartung at 5:46 PM on April 20, 2013


It also bears mentioning that Boston is geographically TINY and composed of several municipalities. The whole lockdown area mapped on to a city like LA or NYC would hardly take up a significant part of the city. I think this is another piece of context that's being forgotten.
posted by sonika at 5:46 PM on April 20, 2013 [13 favorites]




Also, sweetkid's point is spot-on and bears repeating - civilians were encouraged to stay off the street to avoid being harmed in the event of a fire fight or explosion. The very real possibility of either/both and not fear of arrest is what tipped the cost/benefit analysis for most people. We also didn't know if other explosives had been planted and didn't really feel like finding out the hard way.
posted by sonika at 5:49 PM on April 20, 2013 [7 favorites]


"...wasn't the lockdown also in part to keep innocent people from getting shot in a firefight?"

I'm relatively cynical about law enforcement, but I feel confident that public safety was the larger factor, not capturing the fugitive. Maybe not for some of the authorities making the decision. But, for those, it should have been. And to the degree to which it was, it's a pretty strong justification. Capturing the fugitive, not so much.
posted by Ivan Fyodorovich at 5:52 PM on April 20, 2013 [1 favorite]


Except that it wasn't in response to an IED blowing up.

But of course you and dhartung are right. Either way I still believe it is not a good precedent to set. Of course these were extraordinary circumstances, but it seems that lockdowns are becoming more and more commonplace in our society as youandiandaflame's google seach seems to demonstrate. I mean for most people who attended public schools after Columbine lockdowns probably just seem like a normal thing.
posted by AElfwine Evenstar at 5:54 PM on April 20, 2013


sweetkid: “wasn't the lockdown also in part to keep innocent people from getting shot in a firefight? Frankly it's still amazing to me the kid was taken in alive. After Thursday night's craziness including a murdered cop...”

And an explosive vest. The potential wasn't just crossfire – it was a guy running from cops onto a crowded number 71 bus and then hitting the button. There were a ridiculous number of awful, terrible possibilities, considering the weird range of weaponry these guys seemed willing to use. And as plenty of people pointed out when I made my idiotic and obnoxiously popular comment above which I now wish I could have deleted, these guys didn't just kill four people – they showed themselves ready and willing to kill hundreds if possible. The police had to face the possibility that they'd take down a big chunk of a crowd with them in a number of ways, and frankly in the face of that possibility I don't think there's any ethical way to proceed other than to advise people to stay off the street for their own safety.
posted by koeselitz at 5:55 PM on April 20, 2013 [17 favorites]


Speaking as someone who lives about a mile away from where the suspect was captured, I thought the lockdown was an entirely reasonable response to the situation of someone known to be armed and dangerous, who had engaged in a massive firefight with police involving guns and improvised explosives, on the loose in a residential area. And I was frankly grateful that the onus wasn't on me to explain to work why I wasn't coming in that day.

I absolutely think this could be abused, and I absolutely think that there's an important distinction between residents being urged to stay inside and being ordered. But I thought it was handled appropriately in this instance.
posted by Horace Rumpole at 5:55 PM on April 20, 2013 [9 favorites]


it seems that lockdowns are becoming more and more commonplace in our society

A critical factor in which, of course, are our ridiculously permissive gun laws. See the brief Australia derail above. I know which Reality A and which Reality B I'd like to have (referencing Murakami).
posted by dhartung at 5:58 PM on April 20, 2013 [2 favorites]




If this is how we respond every time an IED blows up we are going to be in for a shitty century.

As was mentioned a bit further upthread, in Boston the city shuts down for inclement weather a few times each year anyways. Or, I was visiting Kansas City with some friends a few years back on a Sunday and everything seemed to be closed, which I assume happens every week in such places.

It would be better if the frenzied 24-hour labor and consumerism were curtailed by measures that produced an average 40-hour (or less) work week but it does not seem to me that it will be all that shitty, or even much different from previous centuries, if lockdowns like this were to happen more frequently.
posted by XMLicious at 6:03 PM on April 20, 2013 [1 favorite]


That doesn't jibe with reports that he was just outside the police cordon. Not saying you're, just trying to figure out what happened.

My understanding is that the tight west perimeter only went to Walnut Street, so where he was found was actually literally just outside of it.

I listened to the whole thing go down and they set the perimeter up really quickly after the firefight, they probably didn't figure he'd made it quite that far in the interim. Who knows, maybe he didn't right away. I know this neighborhood really well and there's a lot of yards, bushes, and space. Not a ton of streetlights. It's conceivable you could find a spot to sneak through, especially when a lot of the immediate attention at that time was focused south, by Arsenal Street and the mall.
posted by rollbiz at 6:05 PM on April 20, 2013


As far as the house-by-house searches, I know of at least two people that did decline to have their homes searched. They were asked to bring anyone in the household to the door so they could confirm they were OK, and then they told them to have a nice day and stay inside, and moved on. They didn't seem particularly concerned that someone was actively harboring the suspect, but just that the people inside weren't being held or coerced.
posted by rollbiz at 6:12 PM on April 20, 2013 [23 favorites]


A critical factor in which, of course, are our ridiculously permissive gun laws.

Good luck with that. Congress can't tie their own shoes without checking with the lobbyists first. All the recent hullabaloo about gun control did was inject massive amounts of firearms and ammunition into general circulation...ie the least regulated.

As was mentioned a bit further upthread, in Boston the city shuts down for inclement weather a few times each year anyways.

Complete with paramilitaries, ATTs, and Blackhawks? Really? Also, my concern wasn't for lost productivity.

I'm not saying this wasn't the proper response to the situation, just that it doesn't sit well with me personally. Which really doesn't matter much in the big picture. Honestly it's mostly just the normalization of paramilitary police forces, but that ship has sailed hasn't it? I guess I can't blame the police for using all the fancy gear that post 911 police militarization efforts have afforded them.
posted by AElfwine Evenstar at 6:15 PM on April 20, 2013 [1 favorite]


ICE arrests 2 in Mass. town tied to bombing case
NEW BEDFORD, Mass. (AP) - Two foreign nationals have been arrested on immigration violations in the Massachusetts town where police say the surviving Boston Marathon bombing suspect may have once lived.
posted by BobbyVan at 6:17 PM on April 20, 2013 [1 favorite]


FBI: Boston suspect Tamerlan Tsarnaev followed 'radical Islam'
Tamerlan Tsarnaev was thrown out of the mosque -- the Islamic Society of Boston Cultural Center -- about three months ago, after he stood up and shouted at the imam during a Friday prayer service, they said. The imam had held up slain civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. as an example of a man to emulate, recalled one worshiper who would give his name only as Muhammad.

Enraged, Tamerlan stood up and began shouting, Muhammad said.

“You cannot mention this guy because he’s not a Muslim!” Muhammad recalled Tamerlan shouting, shocking others in attendance.
posted by BobbyVan at 6:19 PM on April 20, 2013


BobbyVan, your ICE link is broken, I think.
posted by Horace Rumpole at 6:21 PM on April 20, 2013


Sorry. ICE arrests 2 in Mass. town tied to bombing case

Still getting used to keys on new laptop.
posted by BobbyVan at 6:23 PM on April 20, 2013 [1 favorite]


I don't think this story drove the whole country nuts. (Most of us had work to do.) It might have driven the media nuts, and certain pols, and some redditors, but that's banal. Also it's easy to say now that it has apparently wound down that there was an overreaction, but I thought (through my MeFi and NPR and NYT lens) that the whole thing's been handled rather admirably.
posted by seemoreglass at 6:28 PM on April 20, 2013




Sweet Caroline has been added to the arena music repertoire at tonight's Leafs/Senators NHL game.
posted by ceribus peribus at 6:37 PM on April 20, 2013 [1 favorite]


A critical factor in which, of course, are our ridiculously permissive gun laws.

Are you actually aware of Massachusetts gun laws? I'm not sure in what way they could ever be considered ridiculously permissive.

In MA, a license is required in order to buy or possess firearms or ammunition of any type. Acquiring such a license requires taking safety courses and then applying to your local chief of police, at which point a full background check must be passed. There are quite literally no standards for what constitutes a reason to deny such an application; chiefs of police have complete discretion.

Even if they do grant you a license, it is completely within their discretion to put very strict limitations on the license (such as only allowing you to use it for home defense). Additionally, the licensing process requires that you identify your residence, and if you move, you have 30 days to submit notice of your move to your new residence's chief of police, or your license is revoked (and guess what? now you're illegally in possession of firearms and ammunition!) MA also maintains an assault weapon ban that is stricter than the federal one that expired in 2004, and a 10-round limit on magazines.

In all seriousness, MA has gun laws that are stricter than anything the current administration could dream of trying to get passed at the federal level.
posted by tocts at 6:37 PM on April 20, 2013 [10 favorites]


Since 9/11 we’ve been a society in a constant state of trauma, reacting violently and irrationally to phantoms and shadows, throwing our own civil liberties on the pyre of illusory safety, and always, always returning to the loop from which we can’t even conceive of escape. It seems as though we can’t stop remembering, when in fact we haven’t yet begun to do so.
Boston, Trauma, and the Closed Loop
posted by codacorolla at 6:40 PM on April 20, 2013


In all seriousness, MA has gun laws that are stricter than anything the current administration could dream of trying to get passed at the federal level.

Gun laws only work on the federal level. Anyone in MA who decides they want a gun can just go to a show in New Hampshire, for example.
posted by ChurchHatesTucker at 6:41 PM on April 20, 2013 [5 favorites]


tocts, those do represent an enviable regime compared to much of the rest of the country (even here in Wisconsin, it's easier to buy a gun and walk into the state capitol carrying it than it is to get a permit to protest there, or protest without a permit). But the discussion/context I was responding to was a general US tendency toward lockdowns being necessary because the country is awash in guns, and of course not even MA is immune from the illegal trade and transfer of guns from other parts of the country.
posted by dhartung at 6:43 PM on April 20, 2013


But is there anyone in the US for whom a day-long request to shelter in place while police do house-to-house sweeps would have seemed like normal, unremarkable civil procedure two days ago?

Well, sure. A lot of people in inner cities with chronic violence problems are pretty much used to this sort of thing, and in some people actually wish they had more of this sort of passionate interest in public safety from law enforcement.

I feel fairly certain that most other locations in a similar situation would have produced a similar compliance ratio. Bostonians aren't that strange a breed of American. And these neighborhoods, actually, are full of a mix of people who work in academia, people who work in tech and pharma industries, people who work in blue collar industries, and people who are as independent-minded as anyone. It's a mixed, often highly educated and somewhat lefty, and not highly "docile" population.
posted by Miko at 6:49 PM on April 20, 2013 [5 favorites]


Anyone in MA who decides they want a gun can just go to a show in New Hampshire, for example.

Well, yes, but then you are the proud owner of an illegal firearm, so you need to either not care about that or hope nothing ever happens such that the police need to know about your gun.
posted by anastasiav at 6:53 PM on April 20, 2013 [1 favorite]


It's a small Eastern state. State borders here really don't mean that much to people who don't want them to mean much, since you can easily cross into all six New England states in a day, and the local laws only really affect people who abide by local laws. A lot of people consider themselves to be above this sort of thing, and chances are they'll never be called on it. NH has liberal gun laws and it's under an hour away from the metro Boston area.

CNN: Official: Boston bombing suspect suffers throat injury, may not be able to talk

Yeah, well, if he's still able to type we'll muddle through.
posted by Miko at 6:59 PM on April 20, 2013 [5 favorites]


From that Boston/trauma piece linked above: As I watched the footage coming out of Boston...

One of my biggest takeaways from 9/11, and then the tsunami, is that you just should NOT watch the footage. I even felt on a couple of occasions that NPR had played the explosions one too many times and just turned it off. It's worse than useless information.
posted by seemoreglass at 7:02 PM on April 20, 2013 [5 favorites]


Well, yes, but then you are the proud owner of an illegal firearm, so you need to either not care about that or hope nothing ever happens such that the police need to know about your gun.

Well, yes. Point is that if you're willing to shoulder that particular burden, you can.
posted by ChurchHatesTucker at 7:02 PM on April 20, 2013 [1 favorite]


Yes, I would imagine being ticketed for an illegal firearm is a BIG deterrent to people who are planning mass murder with nail bombs.
posted by unSane at 7:06 PM on April 20, 2013 [4 favorites]


That wasn't really the point, unSane, and it just sounds like you're recasting an NRA bumper sticker.
posted by dhartung at 7:17 PM on April 20, 2013 [2 favorites]


The need of some contributors to this thread to prove the perps were "radical Muslims" or "foreigners" is really gross.
posted by maxwelton at 7:18 PM on April 20, 2013 [12 favorites]


I'm pretty sure that if you are planning mass murder with nail bombs, no law yet seriously proposed in the US will be a deterent.
posted by anastasiav at 7:21 PM on April 20, 2013 [3 favorites]


nails don't affix boards....
posted by Trochanter at 7:23 PM on April 20, 2013 [1 favorite]


No, gun control laws tend to focus on guns. Pressure cooker control is an entirely different thing.
posted by ChurchHatesTucker at 7:24 PM on April 20, 2013 [1 favorite]


Well, sure. A lot of people in inner cities with chronic violence problems are pretty much used to this sort of thing, and in some people actually wish they had more of this sort of passionate interest in public safety from law enforcement.

A lot of people in inner cities with chronic violence problems have complicated relationships with the police, though. Or, perhaps said better, lots of inner city neighbourhoods with chronic violence problems have complicated relationships with the police. An enthusiastic house-to-house search by the police is many times precisely the sort of situation where you worry about innocent people ending up dead.
posted by hoyland at 7:28 PM on April 20, 2013


A lot of people in inner cities with chronic violence problems have complicated relationships with the police, though

Yep, I get that that's true and am pretty aware of that side of the issue, and yet one of the issues that I have most often heard or been party to is the fact that some communities people get less policing than they want, and rightfully resent the lack of attention, citizen partnership and investment. A lot of communities get the wrong kind of policing, but the lack of interest in the preventative variety of policing is a problem I've been made aware of just as often as the overabundance of the punitive variety of policing. One of the first bricks to fall out of a safe neighborhood's wall is regular, low-key, safe, friendly police presence focused on general public safety.
posted by Miko at 7:34 PM on April 20, 2013 [1 favorite]


gerryblog: "is there anyone in the US for whom a day-long request to shelter in place while police do house-to-house sweeps would have seemed like normal, unremarkable civil procedure two days ago?"

I don't really understand this question. I haven't lived in the US for a long time, and where I'm from (Houston) is incredibly spread out, but from when I lived there, I could imagine a day-long shelter-in-place request with house-to-house sweeps in a chunk of Houston if there were a pair of bombers who had bombed a public event, tossed bombs at police, and were reported to have suicide vests. Yeah, I could totally imagine that as happening. "Normal, unremarkable"? No, but that situation isn't considered "normal, unremarkable" even now.

So what does that question mean?
posted by Bugbread at 7:35 PM on April 20, 2013 [3 favorites]


is there anyone in the US for whom a day-long request to shelter in place while police do house-to-house sweeps would have seemed like normal, unremarkable civil procedure two days ago?"

I think the question here is whether anyone expected there to be an armed gang shooting fusillades of bullets and throwing improvised bombs at cops would have seemed like normal, unremarkable public safety threats two days ago. Or did the cops just spontaneously decide they wanted a lockdown, and Alex Jonesed the terrorists into existence? Infowars is that way, thank you very much.
posted by dhartung at 7:45 PM on April 20, 2013 [9 favorites]


That wasn't really the point, unSane, and it just sounds like you're recasting an NRA bumper sticker.

Actually my point was that State regulation of firearms is ineffective when neighouring States have laxer requirements and there's a gun show loophole, and if you had the faintest familiarity with my posting history you'd have backed off the NRA bullshit, but thanks for playing and have a nice day.

When you have a sea of firearms slopping about, local regulations are ineffective against determined violators. You have to drain the swamp, which is a federal job. That's not an argument against State regulation. It's pointing out that the real problem is Federal.
posted by unSane at 7:45 PM on April 20, 2013 [3 favorites]


That wasn't really the point, unSane, and it just sounds like you're recasting an NRA bumper sticker.
Uh, no. The point is, if you want to carry out mass murder in boston, you can buy your guns in NH and then drive them to boston, so nation-wide gun restrictions are needed if you want to have an impact. It's the opposite of the NRA's position.

People should really try to keep eachother's arguments straight.
___
Also, now do people understand why Obama horsetraded for the right to personally decide whether or not somebody gets military detention in the NDAA negotiations, or why they made sure that it has the disclaimer that it supercedes no laws within the US?
As opposed to telling Lindsay Graham to go fuck himself? Not really.
Has anyone seen a motive for the shooting of the MIT police officer and the subsequent car-jacking? It seems out of character with the rest of their behavior. This more detailed description of the events from Talking Points Memo doesn't make it any clearer.
Panic? Maybe they simply trying to move their equipment to somewhere they thought might be a safe location to hide out for a while. Carjacking someone, admitting you were the bombers and telling them your plans and then letting them go unharmed makes no sense at all.
Oh, you can fulfill 1)-4) and not be good enough for those people. God forbid you're the child of an immigrant.

The point was a significant portion of the country would insist to your face (or to mine anyway) that Ortiz isn't American.
Why exactly do we care what these people think? What exactly does the existence of racists indicate about anything? Fuck them.
I think what I find helpful is that it's a reminder that yes, these opinions are held by people all over the U.S.
So fucking what? "Hey guys racists exist!" like, have we forgotten about that? What the hell does that have to do with anything?
posted by delmoi at 7:53 PM on April 20, 2013 [2 favorites]


When you have a sea of firearms slopping about, local regulations are ineffective against determined violators.

Agreed, but it has nothing to do with, in your words, "people who are planning mass murder with nail bombs."

Surely you'll agree.
posted by ChurchHatesTucker at 7:53 PM on April 20, 2013


I really stay out of the gun threads, so no, I don't track individual posting histories there. It sounds like we're in broad agreement, then. My point, to be clear, is simply that as long as we're awash in guns, as a society we are going to either have to live with threats of things like mass shootings, or live with infringements of other civil liberties in the name of public safety -- and since the NRA has Congress gripped in its cold, dead hands, it is sadly likely we will really have to live with both of those.
posted by dhartung at 7:55 PM on April 20, 2013 [1 favorite]


So fucking what? "Hey guys racists exist!" like, have we forgotten about that?

People on either side of the echo chamber would do well to remind themselves that, yes, other people exist.
posted by ChurchHatesTucker at 7:56 PM on April 20, 2013


So fucking what? "Hey guys racists exist!" like, have we forgotten about that? What the hell does that have to do with anything?

yay this is sort of what I was saying except with less swears and hell.
posted by sweetkid at 7:56 PM on April 20, 2013 [1 favorite]


DarlingBri: "In absolutely no way do I think that was funny and I'd be appalled at anyone who found it funny. I was not attempting to be funny or sarcastic or ironic in the least"

Irony is so entrenched here it's hard to notice it even when you do it, but here's an example of the same statement, minus ironic third-person voice:
A fucking terrifying proportion of the US population considers "American" to only refer to people who fit the following conditions:

1. Born in the USA
2. Speaks English as a first (and preferably only) language
3. Is a Christian or at least professes to be
4. Is white or black. Some also accept Latino, some don't.
See, no "god forbid" or "weird shade" or "Over There" or any of that bullshit.
posted by Bugbread at 7:57 PM on April 20, 2013 [6 favorites]


Agreed, but it has nothing to do with, in your words, "people who are planning mass murder with nail bombs."

You don't think they fit my criterion of 'determined violators'? Okay.
posted by unSane at 7:57 PM on April 20, 2013 [1 favorite]


What exactly does the existence of racists indicate about anything?

Yeah, this is a good point. Racists are loud (or underground) and sometimes they seem to control the discourse. And there's a big middle that's mushy and likes to test the wind before taking a stand. Yet, I don't think we should cede the entire ground of America to these people as if non-racists are powerless against them, or even are fewer than them. I don't think that either is actually the case.
posted by Miko at 7:57 PM on April 20, 2013 [3 favorites]


In addition to being almost universally wrong, the theories developed via social media complicated the official investigation, according to law enforcement officials. Those officials said Saturday that the decision on Thursday to release photos of the two men in baseball caps was meant in part to limit the damage being done to people who were wrongly being targeted as suspects in the news media and on the Internet.
posted by gerryblog at 8:01 PM on April 20, 2013 [7 favorites]


is there anyone in the US for whom a day-long request to shelter in place while police do house-to-house sweeps would have seemed like normal, unremarkable civil procedure two days ago?

What could you compare this event to? It wasn't like they did this just in response to the marathon bombing, they did this after a police officer was murdered and there was a wild shootout with explosives being thrown and in in a very specific neighborhood in the next town over. The request to shelter was in place for a larger area, but it was just a request. The house to house searches were not mandatory from my anecdotal experience, noted above.
posted by rollbiz at 8:03 PM on April 20, 2013


People on either side of the echo chamber would do well to remind themselves that, yes, other people exist.

Cyborgs too!
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 8:06 PM on April 20, 2013 [1 favorite]


"Panic? Maybe they simply trying to move their equipment to somewhere they thought might be a safe location to hide out for a while. Carjacking someone, admitting you were the bombers and telling them your plans and then letting them go unharmed makes no sense at all."

Well, my conjecture here would be that bombing is an impersonal crime, and that killing a cooperative citizen is different than thinking of yourself as a soldier in a warzone, killing police. But yeah, that's a question that doesn't have a goor answer.
posted by klangklangston at 8:08 PM on April 20, 2013


Or did the cops just spontaneously decide they wanted a lockdown, and Alex Jonesed the terrorists into existence? Infowars is that way, thank you very much.

I have no idea what I said to provoke that reply, or how you think it's responsive to the issues that have been raised in this conversation.

What could you compare this event to?

Look, I hope this event is as historically unique as other people seem to think it will be and that we won't see these kinds of quasi-voluntary lockdowns becoming part of regular police procedure. I'm obviously more pessimistic about that than others in the thread; I can imagine the mission creep on this quite easily, as well as the lockdowns becoming less voluntary and more violent as they go (as well as becoming more like a dragnet, where people start getting arrested for the things that are incidentally discovered during the search). Even in the Boston case some bystanders are winding up being deported simply for the bad luck of having come to police attention during the investigation. It's something worth taking a breath and thinking about before it becomes normalized.

As a pessimist, of course, I'm always happy to be wrong.
posted by gerryblog at 8:09 PM on April 20, 2013


is there anyone in the US for whom a day-long request to shelter in place while police do house-to-house sweeps would have seemed like normal, unremarkable civil procedure two days ago?

Oh for the love of Pete, it wasn't normal and unremarkable here yesterday and it wouldn't be normal or unremarkable if it happened next week. This is was an abberation and I hope to Dog that it always will be. It is not normal or unremarkable to have major sporting events in [insert city here] disrupted by bombings. It is not normal or unremarkable to have bombs thrown at police officers in a firefight. It is also not normal or unremarkable to have to search an entire area for the suspected perpetrators of said crimes.

There is absolutely nothing about this week in Boston that has been normal or unremarkable and I hope this isn't any kind of precedent setting event because for that to be true, there would have to be more attacks of this scale on more cities and I am quoting myself when I say that I wouldn't wish that on a city built entirely out of turds in Hell.
posted by sonika at 8:11 PM on April 20, 2013 [10 favorites]


Even in the Boston case some bystanders are winding up being deported simply for the bad luck of having come to police attention during the investigation.

Do you have a citation for this? I've been following local and national news obsessively all day and I haven't seen anything whatsoever implying that anyone was arrested, let alone deported, for anything that transpired during searches yesterday.
posted by sonika at 8:13 PM on April 20, 2013 [5 favorites]


becoming more like a dragnet, where people start getting arrested for the things that are incidentally discovered during the search

If that happens, I confidently expect an outcry.

even in the Boston case some bystanders are winding up being deported simply for the bad luck of having come to police attention during the investigation.

Deported? I haven't heard this, do you have a citation? In any case, they are being deported because of the cause that they don't have legal residency, which presumably was discovered due to this but of course could have been discovered in any other set of ways. I don't like our immigration policies but this is how it is - could have happened for being pulled over on the street, at a factory raid, for being turned in by a neighbor, etc.

It's something worth taking a breath and thinking about before it becomes normalized.


Really, this was completely beyond any meaningful definition of "normal." I think we're all pretty alert and believe me, nobody in or near the People's Republic of Cambridge is handing over their civil liberties wantonly. I get where your warnings are coming from but as of yet, this was a response people understood and participated in (unless they didn't) and not the first indicator of a slippery slope. If that changes I expect people to stand up to it. As I said, it's not a sheeplike populace around here.

On an earthier plane, here are some other unexpected results of the "lockdown:" = "if Dunkies closes, the terrorists win."
posted by Miko at 8:15 PM on April 20, 2013 [8 favorites]


People on either side of the echo chamber would do well to remind themselves that, yes, other people exist.
Oh, sorry, am I spending all my time in the "not racist" echo chamber?

What exactly is the relevance of the existence of racists have to do with anything here? This came about because people were discussing some arbitrary standard by which racists would judge these bombers to determine if they were "American" or not. But why do we give a shit about their assessment? What possible value is there in trying to figure out what they might think about it? Do you think their concerns have some kind of legitimacy? Are they something you think we should take into consideration for some reason?

There was no context other then "hey guys, here's what racists might think of the situation" with no explanation as to why it mattered, with the implication being it did matter somehow.

___

With the gun law issue you all seem to be talking past eachother. As we've seen, mass murder with nail bombs is far more difficult then mass murder with AR-15s. These two could have killed at least 20-30 people with machine guns. They used bombs because they planned to get away with it. Without national gun laws people like this could easily get those weapons and bring them back to MA. Do any of you disagree with that?
posted by delmoi at 8:15 PM on April 20, 2013 [3 favorites]


So my Facebook feed has been full of "Well looks like all you assholes who said these guys were white were WRONG" and "Oh look Muslim Terrorists!"

Which is odd because they look white to me ( and are from the Caucasians) and um, how come no one ever says 'look McVeigh was a Christian terrorist, and that guy at Ruby Ridge, Christian.
posted by 922257033c4a0f3cecdbd819a46d626999d1af4a at 8:16 PM on April 20, 2013


gerryblog: “But is there anyone in the US for whom a day-long request to shelter in place while police do house-to-house sweeps would have seemed like normal, unremarkable civil procedure two days ago? Whether or not it's technically 'martial law' is pedantry; either way it registers another shift in the way we respond both to terror and to legal authority. I agree that it seems like an utterly terrible precedent to set.”

As others have noted, this has largely been "normal, unremarkable civil procedure" in Boston for many decades. I only lived there for less than two years, but it happened four times while I was there that authorities asked people to stay inside because of weather emergencies, or suggested that people might not want to drive the next day until a certain time because the roads wouldn't be passable. That was almost a decade ago, but I know it was already old hat to people then. And I can say that this is common in cities like Denver and Boulder, too. You may feel that there's a very important distinction between "please say inside because the weather might actually be dangerous" and "please stay inside because a guy might blow you up," but most people see this as a difference in degree of danger, not a very real legal difference.

As far as recommended curfews in the case of manhunts, however, of course it's never a normal, unremarkable thing; nobody likes a day-long curfew, even a self-imposed one. But the US Constitution doesn't prohibit things that aren't normal and unremarkable; what really matters here is that the law was followed, and as far as I can tell it absolutely was. We haven't heard any accounts of the Fourth Amendment being violated; on the contrary, all accounts suggest that all searches were strictly voluntary and police turned away when asked to by residents.

“Look, I hope this event is as historically unique as other people seem to think it will be and that we won't see these kinds of quasi-voluntary lockdowns becoming part of regular police procedure.”

I absolutely agree that this event is not historically unique. It has happened many times in many cities. It's been years since daily curfews were common in any cities I know of, but as I said above it is in fact not uncommon at all for authorities to request that people stay inside if it's best for the safety of the populace.

As this page says, there are tests for whether curfews are Constitutional in the United States; they must not violate principally the 1st, 4th, 5th, or 14th amendments. Please note that we know this because there is case law, and there is case law because there have been cities that have instituted curfews or required citizens to stay inside at certain times. Do you think this situation violated any of those amendments? I mean that as an honest question – it is an important one, and if this is a violation of Constitutionally-protected rights we should confront that fact. However, I will note again that as far as I can tell nobody was required to do anything in this case, anyway – so the case law surrounding curfew doesn't seem to even apply. And if people weren't required to stay indoors, well – it just really doesn't seem like a violation.
posted by koeselitz at 8:17 PM on April 20, 2013 [5 favorites]


On the carjacked captive: They didn't 'let him go'! He escape while they were at the shell station.
posted by gofargogo at 8:17 PM on April 20, 2013


An enthusiastic house-to-house search by the police is many times precisely the sort of situation where you worry about innocent people ending up dead.

Actually, having thought for a few minutes, I think this is where my disquiet with the whole lockdown thing comes from. Conceptually, I don't really have a problem with it. It's obviously practical for both the police and the public for the public to stay indoors when there's a distinct possibility of a shootout in the middle of the street. But I have enough distrust of the police that it feels like creating a situation where people end up dead accidentally, yet those accidents aren't distributed equally throughout the population. As if the stay inside directive comes with an unspoken threat--if you're in the street, we might decide you're the bad guy and kill you. Which, I suppose, is why I'm so grateful/relieved/something that Tsarnaev was captured alive--it suggests some of my suspicion/fear of the police is unfounded.

(Precisely why I have this fear, I don't know. When it comes to interactions with the police, I'm fairly ridiculously privileged, so you'd kind of expect the opposite of me. But I picked it up somewhere.)
posted by hoyland at 8:19 PM on April 20, 2013 [1 favorite]


"Even in the Boston case some bystanders are winding up being deported simply for the bad luck of having come to police attention during the investigation."

…that's pretty different from if some folks had been busted from stuff involved with the door-to-door. I'm not gonna shed too many tears for folks rolled up in the course of a regular investigation.
posted by klangklangston at 8:20 PM on April 20, 2013


I'd also like a cite for the deportations. I've done a few google searches and came up with nothing talking about deportations (or even secondary arrests not related to the bombers).
posted by gofargogo at 8:22 PM on April 20, 2013


To be clear, the people I was thinking of weren't discovered during the door-to-door searches but during the search of the original Saudi national "person of interest"'s apartment. This was reported by PBS several days ago:
They went to his residence in Revere and found two other Saudi nationals. It turns out -- and they had visa problems, so Immigration and Customs Enforcement took them into custody. But it seems as if this is a -- this is not where the investigation is going.
There were also reports that the Saudi national himself was going to wind up being deported. Glenn Beck is apparently going crazy over the Saudi national stuff so it's now very hard to Google reliably; it looks like Napolitano has debunked at least that part of the story, if not the part about the residence in Revere.
posted by gerryblog at 8:23 PM on April 20, 2013


Totally sincere, non-snarky question: people keep emphasizing that he/they killed a police officer. Why is this more remarkable than killing a regular civillian?
posted by windykites at 8:23 PM on April 20, 2013 [1 favorite]


"I can't speak to Watertown, but in Brookline the lockdown was quite dramatic.

The sky was black with drones.
"

Did the drones deliver milk?

Totally sincere, non-snarky question: people keep emphasizing that he/they killed a police officer. Why is this more remarkable than killing a regular civillian?"

Cops are harder to kill and tend to be more likely to kill you if you attempt it.
posted by klangklangston at 8:26 PM on April 20, 2013


What exactly is the relevance of the existence of racists have to do with anything here? This came about because people were discussing some arbitrary standard by which racists would judge these bombers to determine if they were "American" or not. But why do we give a shit about their assessment? What possible value is there in trying to figure out what they might think about it? Do you think their concerns have some kind of legitimacy? Are they something you think we should take into consideration for some reason?

If the racists use this as an excuse for a (bigger) round of xenophobia, that's going to negatively impact people's lives. So, yes, if the racists are busy constructing a discourse to make these guys not Americans, it's a concern to me because there's a non-zero chance they'll be trying to push me and people I care about out of the 'American' category. (And I was born here!)
posted by hoyland at 8:29 PM on April 20, 2013 [1 favorite]




Mod note: Folks, sarcasm doesn't work all that well on the internet, especially when feelings are running high. Please try other methods of getting your point across. Thanks.
posted by restless_nomad (staff) at 8:31 PM on April 20, 2013 [1 favorite]


The WaPo story Gerryblog linked is awesome. It's the first good account of the steps in the investigation and decisionmaking that I've seen, and it's quite informative.

Totally sincere, non-snarky question: people keep emphasizing that he/they killed a police officer. Why is this more remarkable than killing a regular civillian?

Really, since it's a sincere question? It's not a new thing or an unusual thing. It's not as though a police officer's life is more valuable than anyone else's life, but in America, killing a police officer is (and has been throughout my lifetime) an extra big deal. I'm going to ackowledge right off the bat that there are a lot of fair critiques of policing today and in history. There are bad cops, bad administrations, bad incidents and bad historical periods. But at the same time, that's not the full story, and they are performing a public service. There is a honest amount of grief that people who work so hard and give so much service to the community - despite the failings of the profession, which we all can recite - should fall in the line of duty. It is a thing that makes everyone recognize that they deal with a lot of things and take a lot of risks the rest of us would just much rather opt out of handling. Then, too, there's the fact that if you kill a cop you are in a real sense engaged seriously in opposing a form of social order they're there to protect (rightly or not, as the case may be). I remember feeling like "why make 'cop killer' such a big deal" when I was a teenager, but since then I've come to understand why the death of an officer who was in the midst of doing his/her work has a unique kind of sadness and grief, not greater or lesser than civilian grief, but special because they were there purposefully, knowingly, voluntarily and as part of their chosen line of work, trying to do something on behalf of the larger society.
posted by Miko at 8:33 PM on April 20, 2013 [10 favorites]


You don't think they fit my criterion of 'determined violators'? Okay.

No, pretty much by definition they do. Not sure what you're arguing at this point.

Oh, sorry, am I spending all my time in the "not racist" echo chamber?

If you're offended to be reminded that racists exist? Probably.
posted by ChurchHatesTucker at 8:34 PM on April 20, 2013


Totally sincere, non-snarky question: people keep emphasizing that he/they killed a police officer. Why is this more remarkable than killing a regular civillian?

For the same reasons it would be more remarkable if someone killed the mayor, and also for different reasons: Primarily, I would say it would be because an attack against the forces of government creates a more generally profound consequence, and because first responders of all types are what separate us from various forms of chaos.
posted by rollbiz at 8:35 PM on April 20, 2013 [2 favorites]


In other words, killing a civilian for being a civilian is different than killing a representative for being a representative.
posted by tychotesla at 8:38 PM on April 20, 2013 [5 favorites]


Totally sincere, non-snarky question: people keep emphasizing that he/they killed a police officer. Why is this more remarkable than killing a regular civillian?"

Because a person reckless or depraved enough to kill a cop will kill anyone.
posted by BobbyVan at 8:39 PM on April 20, 2013 [4 favorites]




Just a slight aside, related to the procession for Collier. It was over 2 minutes long. Typically, when an officer is killed in the line of duty dispatch puts them "out of service" over the radio. Here's an example. They call out the fallen officer's radio number then sit in silence. They repeat. Silence. Then there is a 10- code, meaning the officer is out of service. Frequently dispatch struggles to get through it. I didn't realize this was done, just learned it, and found it incredibly moving. Wanted to share...

Here is a (horribly) shaky video of the procession for Collier.

I'll stop cutting onions in here now.
posted by youandiandaflame at 8:45 PM on April 20, 2013 [20 favorites]


My pet hypothesis is as follows:
The older brother was a boxer who suffered from CTE from a decade of boxing concussions and MMA. The younger brother had amphetamine psychosis form taking too much of the popular "study drug" Adderral, which was combined with marijuana and alcohol.
posted by humanfont at 8:49 PM on April 20, 2013


Because a person reckless or depraved enough to kill a cop will kill anyone.

No, it's not that. We, as citizens, have voted into being an office that is empowered to use violence on our behalf. There is someone who's profession is to stand bodily between a terrified woman and her enraged boyfriend. We want her to be the most powerful and lethal member of our community, and we want her to be the best trained, and the best armed.

When someone comes along and kills this representative of our community... that someone has violated the fundamental community agreement. That someone has declared themselves beyond law, and therefore beyond democracy. They must be dealt with as an existential threat to the right of the people to govern themselves.

(On the other hand, dirty cops need to be dealt with even more harshly... but that is a battle for another time.)
posted by Slap*Happy at 8:51 PM on April 20, 2013 [50 favorites]


When someone comes along and kills this representative of our community... that someone has violated the fundamental community agreement. That someone has declared themselves beyond law, and therefore beyond democracy. They must be dealt with as an existential threat to the right of the people to govern themselves.

yea this is my feeling, too.
posted by sweetkid at 8:52 PM on April 20, 2013 [1 favorite]


Not sure what you're arguing at this point.

Evidently. I'm out.
posted by unSane at 8:59 PM on April 20, 2013


Slap*Happy, that was really beautifully expressed. Never have I seen that thought put quite so perfectly.
posted by Miko at 9:02 PM on April 20, 2013 [1 favorite]


I've got to say something to those people trying to ascribe one psychosis or another to these brothers. What if they (or, at least the older brother) saw:

1) The way Muslims are talked about in this country.

2) The way Muslims are treated by this country in other countries.

And what if he just couldn't accept it? What if war after war and killing after killing of his people just plain stuck in his craw?

What if he was just out and out an enemy combatant?

Surely, we are way too far into this game to still be asking, "Why do they hate us".
posted by Trochanter at 9:08 PM on April 20, 2013


So my Facebook feed has been full of "Well looks like all you assholes who said these guys were white were WRONG" and "Oh look Muslim Terrorists!"

Which is odd because they look white to me ( and are from the Caucasians) ...


"White" is a social construct that evolves with time. At one point Jews (even Ashkenazi Jews with pale skin and red or blonde hair) were not "white", in the sense that they were considered to be another race. So were people from Ireland, if you can believe that. The people on your facebook feed seem to define "not-white" as something like "a person who is identifiable as Black, Latino, or a member of another ethnic group originating outside Western Europe."
posted by Joe in Australia at 9:15 PM on April 20, 2013 [3 favorites]


In a spirit of solidarity with the people of Boston, a student here in Calgary organized over social media a "Run For Boston" this afternoon; an informal gathering in a park just to show we're thinking of you guys. He expected a couple of dozen people to show up.

Over 800 people turned out (on a freezing day), including the Mayor -- who may not be much of a runner but did go to Harvard -- and Calgarians who ran the marathon this year, including one who crossed the finish line 90 seconds before the bombs. So Boston, we're thinkin' about you.
posted by Homeboy Trouble at 9:16 PM on April 20, 2013 [18 favorites]


I've got to say something to those people trying to ascribe one psychosis or another to these brothers. What if they (or, at least the older brother) saw:

1) The way Muslims are talked about in this country.

2) The way Muslims are treated by this country in other countries.

And what if he just couldn't accept it? What if war after war and killing after killing of his people just plain stuck in his craw?


I could understand that sentiment in the abstract, maybe, except that I feel pretty clearly that most people in MA, particularly in the metro areas, accept all sorts of people as their neighbors and friends, and also that:

1) The people watching the Boston Marathon at the four hour mark showed no indication of treating Muslims badly.

2) The MIT cop, Officer Collier, showed no ill will towards Muslims that I am aware of.

3) The MBTA cop who was injured showed no ill-will towards Muslims that I am aware of, nor did the hundreds of officers who maintained the operations there.

Maybe it was a response to the sort of sentiment you noted, but it was still a very senseless one if so, as not a single person who was killed, maimed, or otherwise affected was anti-Muslim so far as I know.

What if he was just out and out an enemy combatant?

I know this wasn't your main point, but we're talking about American citizens who spent at least half of their too-short lives here in America. I don't think you're making this argument, but any argument that labels these guys as enemy combatants is an argument I reject on it's face, as much as I would do so for the Newtown shooter or the Colorado shooter, etc.
posted by rollbiz at 9:21 PM on April 20, 2013 [3 favorites]


East Watertown is also a very mixed area, religiously and racially.
posted by rollbiz at 9:23 PM on April 20, 2013 [3 favorites]


Yeah, this isn't a whitebread sort of environment.
posted by Miko at 9:26 PM on April 20, 2013


They must be dealt with as an existential threat to the right of the people to govern themselves.

What? Cop killers are an existential threat to democracy??? I don't think you know what existential means. Now if you had a group of cop killers organized into a hierarchical structure...like a military...who were threatening to take over the U.S. then yes I would agree that might be an existential threat.
posted by AElfwine Evenstar at 9:28 PM on April 20, 2013


I guess what I'm saying is that if they felt that they, or people like them, were under indiscriminate attack, attacks that were equally indiscriminate don't seem like a proper response.
posted by rollbiz at 9:30 PM on April 20, 2013


I don't think you know what existential means.

Well, I know what existential means, and I think there's something quite reasonable about that. I see that you don't follow the reasoning, but it's pretty strong.
posted by Miko at 9:32 PM on April 20, 2013 [2 favorites]


"And what if he just couldn't accept it? What if war after war and killing after killing of his people just plain stuck in his craw?

What if he was just out and out an enemy combatant?

Surely, we are way too far into this game to still be asking, "Why do they hate us".
"

The reason this comes across as bullshit to me is that the guy didn't, you know, try to kill the President or any of SCOTUS or Congress, he didn't do it as part of a media campaign to call attention to atrocities, he didn't voice any coherent political motivation for blowing up people at the marathon.

So while those things might have been motivations in the abstract, nothing about this evidences any rational connection to any political project.

That's why taking this moment to get on a soapbox about American imperialism is picking the wrong time and the wrong corner.
posted by klangklangston at 9:32 PM on April 20, 2013 [10 favorites]


Yeah, and if he was really intent about political opposition, his tactics were a stupid way to get it across because they're just incoherent, in addition to being clumsily executed. So, he might be an "enemy combatant" but a pretty bad one. If you fail at that sort of clear expression, you're just another random outlier and it's fair to apply other names, like "terrorist" or "criminal."
posted by Miko at 9:35 PM on April 20, 2013


What? Cop killers are an existential threat to democracy???

Who elected them to kill cops?
posted by Slap*Happy at 9:36 PM on April 20, 2013 [2 favorites]


What? Cop killers are an existential threat to democracy???

In some situations, including this one, I would argue that yes, they are.
posted by rollbiz at 9:38 PM on April 20, 2013 [1 favorite]


If you're offended to be reminded that racists exist? Probably.
I'm not offended to be reminded that racists exist. I'm questioning why you're telling us what they think, with no explanation as to why you're telling us, as if it matters or we should consider their feelings for some reason.

And it's true, I don't generally give a shit what racists think or pay much attention to their feelings. Why should I?
The younger brother had amphetamine psychosis form taking too much of the popular "study drug" Adderral, which was combined with marijuana and alcohol.
So it's reefer madness, doc?
No, it's not that. We, as citizens, have voted into being an office that is empowered to use violence on our behalf. There is someone who's profession is to stand bodily between a terrified woman and her enraged boyfriend. We want her to be the most powerful and lethal member of our community, and we want her to be the best trained, and the best armed.

When someone comes along and kills this representative of our community... that someone has violated the fundamental community agreement. That someone has declared themselves beyond law, and therefore beyond democracy. They must be dealt with as an existential threat to the right of the people to govern themselves.
There are lot of people who don't feel the police are their "community representatives" or that they have any say in their behavior.
Who elected them to kill cops?
Who elected non-cops to kill other non-cops? Like I said. Not everyone views the police as their representatives. They may see the police as representing a majority who hates them and wants to see them oppressed, for example. A majority oppressing a minority is just as "democratic" as anything else.
posted by delmoi at 9:40 PM on April 20, 2013 [1 favorite]


I see that you don't follow the reasoning, but it's pretty strong.

Please, explain to me how cop killers are existential threats to the United States of America. I mean periodic threats to local law and order maybe, but claiming they are existential threats to democracy seems to be a little hard to argue.

Who elected them to kill cops?

No one, but then I didn't elect the cops to lock up African-Americans, did I? Also, whether I elected anyone or not has little bearing on whether or not the existence of democracy is being threatened.

In some situations, including this one, I would argue that yes, they are.

So go ahead, argue it. Lay out your vision for how these two guys threatened the existence of democracy.
posted by AElfwine Evenstar at 9:44 PM on April 20, 2013


There are lot of people who don't feel the police are their "community representatives" or that they have any say in their behavior.

There is a rather large space between this sentiment, and killing police officers, and there's a lot of space in between that doesn't involve blowing up innocent people during a public event too.

Let's remember that they didn't bomb a police station.
posted by rollbiz at 9:45 PM on April 20, 2013 [3 favorites]


AElfwine Evenstar: “Please, explain to me how cop killers are existential threats to the United States of America. I mean periodic threats to local law and order maybe, but claiming they are existential threats to democracy seems to be a little hard to argue.”

Police officers are emphatically the primary and immediate executive arm of the democratic government of the United States. They are the ones that make sure laws are followed – no one else. To kill police officers is to threaten the very law and order on which democracy must stand.
posted by koeselitz at 9:50 PM on April 20, 2013 [3 favorites]


Okay, so you're both using different definitions of "existential threat". Can we move on? Do we have to call in Mr. Rudolph Bob Oxford, author of the Oxford English Dictionary, to adjudicate? Or, if you're descriptivists, do we have to call in languagehat to determine which of you is "right"?

Or can we just accept that by using different definitions for the same term, you're never going to convince each other, so it's a bit of a waste of time, and move on to discussions that don't hinge on definition?
posted by Bugbread at 9:54 PM on April 20, 2013 [4 favorites]


Democracy's entire argument against totalitarian monarchies, oligarchies, etc. is that the people do not need order kept by an unanswerable, unaccoutable state, but can police themselves through civil means.
posted by Miko at 9:54 PM on April 20, 2013 [1 favorite]


So go ahead, argue it.

I actually already started to.

I mean periodic threats to local law and order maybe, but claiming they are existential threats to democracy seems to be a little hard to argue.

You seem to see a distinction that is much wider than the one I see. When the protective forces of a civilized society are attacked, the existence of the line between a society protected and unprotected is attacked. Certainly this specific incidence didn't imperil democracy throughout the United States, but as someone who lived through it closely, it did definitely violate the construct locally.
posted by rollbiz at 9:54 PM on April 20, 2013 [1 favorite]


"Please, explain to me how cop killers are existential threats to the United States of America. I mean periodic threats to local law and order maybe, but claiming they are existential threats to democracy seems to be a little hard to argue."

Yeah, I think that they only become existential threats if you really lean on the idea of a universal morality — to the extent that killing cops implies that killing cops is normal, they're a threat to the existence of cops and by proxy civil society. But in terms of actually becoming that norm? Not a chance, really. So I can see them as an abstract "existential" threat, but not a practical existential one.
posted by klangklangston at 9:54 PM on April 20, 2013


Bugbread: “Okay, so you're both using different definitions of 'existential threat'. Can we move on?”

That's a fair point, now that I think of it. I think AElfwine Evenstar reads "killing cops is an existential threat to democracy" as something like "if you kill a single cop democracy itself might be destroyed." Whereas Slap*Happy seems to have meant that killing cops is an existential threat in the sense that it means eliminating those who safeguard law and order – maybe that is slow going, but it absolutely threatens the foundations of democracy nonetheless, and even if it doesn't mean democracy will implode tomorrow it is attack on its foundations in a more fundamental way than even simple murder itself is.
posted by koeselitz at 9:59 PM on April 20, 2013 [1 favorite]


abstract "existential" threat,

That's exactly how I read it - it's an existential threat in that it undermines our argument for democracy. That's why people take it pretty hard.

I didn't personally mean, and am not sure that anyone was arguing, that this specific incident was ever going to take down our democracy. It's just that the act of killing a cop, in general, is an attempt to refute the argument for democracy, which is that the people can keep order through the systems they develop and regulate democratically.
posted by Miko at 9:59 PM on April 20, 2013 [1 favorite]


There is a rather large space between this sentiment, and killing police officers, and there's a lot of space in between that doesn't involve blowing up innocent people during a public event too.


Sure, but I'm just pointing out this whole "cops are so wonderful and they are the avatars of the people" is a bit much. I mean somebody voted for Joe Arpaio and got him in office. That doesn't mean his behavior is somehow commendable just because it has a democratic imprimatur.

It's surprising when someone kills a police officer, because typically the cops are much more interested in catching people who do that compared to people who kill 'normal' people. I mean there is that whole story about Tamerlan's friend who was murdered in 2011, with marijuana sprinkled over his body. The murder was never solved, and I would bet people saw it as "another dead drug dealer" and not taken as much notice.

I don't think it's shocking because it's "more transgressive" then killing a normal person, it's just shocking in general because it's much more risky. But these guys were already terrorists, so it's not like they were going to get away.
Police officers are emphatically the primary and immediate executive arm of the democratic government of the United States. They are the ones that make sure laws are followed – no one else. To kill police officers is to threaten the very law and order on which democracy must stand.
Police enforce state laws, not federal laws. And the fact that it's a threat does not make it an existential threat. When people talk about existential threats, they mean threats that actually threaten the existence of something. Like Hitler and the Nazis, or the communist soviet union.
That's exactly how I read it - it's an existential threat in that it undermines our argument for democracy. That's why people take it pretty hard.
No, an existential threat is a threat that threatens existence. It's not some kind of "philosophical threat"
posted by delmoi at 10:04 PM on April 20, 2013 [2 favorites]


So it's reefer madness, doc?

Our abstinence focused drug policies have left us with out the tools to separate casual users from those who are adversely affected. Furthermore the lack of credibility created by the gap between the casual drug users experience and the expected experience created by programs like DARE has lead to a lack of credibility for things we know are not good things to do. When casual users try drugs and they immediately transform you into a crack whore, they start thinking well all that stuff was just bullshit.

Though we should have a moral panic about contact sports. CTE is a serious problem and we don't have any idea how to deal with it yet.
posted by humanfont at 10:04 PM on April 20, 2013


Sure, but I'm just pointing out this whole "cops are so wonderful and they are the avatars of the people" is a bit much.

You quoted me before you posted this, so I'd just like to note that I never said anything remotely of the sort.
posted by rollbiz at 10:06 PM on April 20, 2013 [2 favorites]


Ha! I didn't even consider existential in the Philosophical sense.
posted by AElfwine Evenstar at 10:09 PM on April 20, 2013 [1 favorite]


Sure, but I'm just pointing out this whole "cops are so wonderful and they are the avatars of the people" is a bit much.

Yeah, and nobody said that. In fact I fell all over myself to make abundantly sure it was clear I don't believe that.

No, an existential threat is a threat that threatens existence. It's not some kind of "philosophical threat"

Forgive me if I don't consider this blog a definitive source on usage, especially for a phrase that's basically fairly recent jargon. I'm not sure this is a definition one can pin down; it's new and it's contested. My reading of it as "a threat pertaining to the existence [of democracy]" , i.e., a threat that is "existential," seems entirely supportable, but I'm happy to call it something like "a threat to the philosophical foundations of democracy" instead, which I'm sure cannot be objected to .

The underlying idea remains unchanged.
posted by Miko at 10:10 PM on April 20, 2013 [2 favorites]


It's amazing the number of people who are trying to connect this event to one or more of their complaints with current American society, no matter how tenuous the connection is.
posted by benito.strauss at 10:11 PM on April 20, 2013 [14 favorites]


benito.strauss: “It's amazing the number of people who are trying to connect this event to one or more of their complaints with current American society, no matter how tenuous the connection is.”

How so?
posted by koeselitz at 10:12 PM on April 20, 2013


Almost a year ago, 8-year-old Martin Richard wrote four simple words on a sign at school.

"No more hurting people," it said.

For the camera, he held up the bright blue sign decorated with hearts framing the word "Peace."

posted by jason's_planet at 10:13 PM on April 20, 2013


"Ha! I didn't even consider existential in the Philosophical sense."

Didn't somebody say most philosophical problems are language problems?
posted by klangklangston at 10:33 PM on April 20, 2013 [1 favorite]


Yeah, and nobody said that. In fact I fell all over myself to make abundantly sure it was clear I don't believe that.
It seems pretty clear to me that's basically what Slap*Happy said.

The original question was why it was so shocking that they killed a police officer, and the response was that the police "represent" us and "democracy" because the police enforce the laws that were passed by people "we" elected.

I was pointing out that that only applies to the majority, and if they support the oppression of a minority through the use of police force (Such as electing Joe Apaio sheriff), those people in the minority are not going to feel like the police represent them.

My point was that his reasoning for why killing a police officer is considered a big deal isn't correct. The actual reason, I think, is that the police consider it a big deal and thus you're more likely to get caught if you try it. That's not likely a consideration for these guys, since they were already wanted terrorists.

Also the use of the term "existential threat" is generally used within the context of national security to refer to threats that threaten the existence of something. As in actually threaten, not just 'rhetorically' threaten. If it's used otherwise it's typically an exaggeration, or someone who doesn't know what the term is supposed to mean, but using it because it sounds cool or more intense.
posted by delmoi at 10:33 PM on April 20, 2013 [1 favorite]


delmoi: "I was pointing out that that only applies to the majority...My point was that his reasoning for why killing a police officer is considered a big deal isn't correct."

I'm not quite getting that. I assume when people say "It's considered a big deal", they mean "by the majority", not "by every single person". Heck, that's proven true by the fact that we're even discussing it. If we were all in 100% total agreement, the topic wouldn't have come up.

So the question is "Why do the majority of people think killing a police officer is a big deal?", and the answer is "Because the majority of people think of them as enforcing the laws that the majority passed". And so the rebuttal, "That's not true, because it only applies to the majority" doesn't make sense to me.
posted by Bugbread at 10:38 PM on April 20, 2013


It seems pretty clear to me that's basically what Slap*Happy said.

Only if you read it as narrowly and with as much hostility to the sentiment as possible.
posted by Miko at 10:41 PM on April 20, 2013 [2 favorites]


I will also say this: I'm pretty sure that much of our discussion revolves around an unspoken realization that this lockdown took place in what looks like a largely white, middle-class neighborhood (with boats!), and would have a considerably different tenor if the police had locked down -- even on the exact same justification -- a black neighborhood or even more pointedly a neighborhood filled with Chechen immigrants. Certainly, I believe, in Russia Chechens are a minority with very low social ranking and are often treated as criminals or assumed to be what criminals are, in a way that in America is often reserved for blacks.

The flip side of the coin being, naturally, that white middle-class Americans, more than any other individual subset, can be "compliant" precisely because they don't have a history of being targeted racially by the police, can expect fair treatment much more often than other groups, and in a broadly defined way may even think of themselves as the people the police are there to protect, in contrast to certain other groups.
posted by dhartung at 10:44 PM on April 20, 2013 [7 favorites]


delmoi: “It seems pretty clear to me that's basically what Slap*Happy said.”

Uh, didn't Slap*Happy pointedly end his comment with the statement that bad cops are bad cops and that their being cops doesn't redeem them but in fact makes their crimes even worse?
posted by koeselitz at 10:44 PM on April 20, 2013 [2 favorites]


Uh, didn't Slap*Happy pointedly end his comment with the statement that bad cops are bad cops and that their being cops doesn't redeem them but in fact makes their crimes even worse?
Yes? Doesn't change the main point, though.
posted by delmoi at 10:54 PM on April 20, 2013


> people who are trying to connect this event to one or more of their complaints ...

How so?


I've seen drug policy, drones, and immigration policy all raised as important aspects of this. Maybe everyone's just shootin' the breeze and I'm reading it wrong to take them so seriously.

/going to bed so won't be responding for a while. bye.
posted by benito.strauss at 10:59 PM on April 20, 2013


...the guy didn't:
try to kill the President or any of SCOTUS or Congress,

Hard targets.

do it as part of a media campaign to call attention to atrocities

He didn't get any attention? He didn't get any media?

voice any coherent political motivation for blowing up people at the marathon.

I don't know about coherent, but he seems to have tried to connect with some sort of organization, or something that was perceived as an organization by the Russian organization watchers. The FBI was alerted to him. That implies some kind of politics, or a political internal monologue, doesn't it?

And as far as being on a soapbox: One, that's kind of a belligerent crack and two, I wasn't talking about politics, I was talking about violence.
posted by Trochanter at 11:27 PM on April 20, 2013


this lockdown took place in what looks like a largely white, middle-class neighborhood (with boats!), and would have a considerably different tenor if the police had locked down -- even on the exact same justification -- a black neighborhood or even more pointedly a neighborhood filled with Chechen immigrants.

While this neighborhood is changing for the richer as are all neighborhoods in the Boston suburbs (I could never raise a family where I grew up myself, for example), your read of the neighborhood is wrong. Watertown is very multi-ethnic, and still pretty working class- My aunts who live there are both teachers, who moved their from Cambridge when that got to expensive.

As far as *with boats!*, this is the first boat I've ever seen in this neighborhood, and it's not a particularly impressive or expensive one. Lots of people in Gloucester have boats too, but I promise you it doesn't mean they're well-off.
posted by rollbiz at 11:30 PM on April 20, 2013 [7 favorites]


Owning a boat like this here is very much like owning an OK motorcycle or having an old El Camino in your garage that you've restored over the years. You're probably not hand-to-mouth, but you're by no means rich and you might not even be middle-class (whatever that is, anymore)...
posted by rollbiz at 11:35 PM on April 20, 2013 [3 favorites]


A trailer boat isn't that expensive a toy. Anybody who can afford a car could have one. It's when the boat needs its own mooring or berth at a marina that you know there's some serious money around.
posted by UbuRoivas at 11:48 PM on April 20, 2013 [4 favorites]


I'm feeling pretty comfortable leaving the political analysis in the hands of Bostonian MeFites. It's not exactly hard-right-wing, so it's not like we'll get insufficient input from lefties, and I've just seen too many folks not-in-Boston make all kinds of assumptions (rich white neighborhood! city transportation shutdowns are unprecedented! the police ordered people to stay indoors, the city was completely locked down!) that Bostonian residents come in and say "No, that's not true".
posted by Bugbread at 11:58 PM on April 20, 2013 [3 favorites]


Thank goodness David Henneberry still smokes.

Remember kids, smoking is for losers... and for heroes who catch terrorists.
posted by homunculus at 12:08 AM on April 21, 2013 [3 favorites]


Damn, after all these years, I could actually go for a smoke right now, if I had any. But I'd probably hack up a lung anyway. Bah.
posted by homunculus at 12:12 AM on April 21, 2013


I'm feeling pretty comfortable leaving the political analysis in the hands of Bostonian MeFites.

Yeah, awesome, but how to identify them? In my mind I have "Bostonite" tags against Miko, sonika, benito.strauss and a 'possible' against EmpressCallipygos.

We should pester the mods for a special tag for this thread, so we know who's in the know, and who's just speculating from afar.
posted by UbuRoivas at 12:17 AM on April 21, 2013


I'm feeling pretty comfortable leaving the political analysis in the hands of Bostonian MeFites.

Thanks. Obviously everyone is able and welcome to comment and I don't get to decide who says what, but it has been occasionally frustrating to have people talking about really specific locations in ways that make it abundantly clear that they don't understand them at all.

My day job is civil liberties work across MA. I promise you that in the days and weeks to follow, we will be looking very carefully into what happened and what overreaches might have occurred. I'm really worried about the detentions in New Bedford and elsewhere, and obviously the dude that was apparently strip-searched by robot, among other things.
posted by rollbiz at 12:19 AM on April 21, 2013 [6 favorites]


(Posted before I finished my thought, accidentally)

But, I want to say that overall, I did really feel like the response was in line with both the threat and the rights of the general population, and that a lot of what people were complaining about related to requests, rather than orders.

20 something blocks of East Watertown were locked tight and had some pretty tight hard restrictions. Everywhere else, which is like 99.5% of the metro area, were simply under a request to stay inside and be careful.
posted by rollbiz at 12:25 AM on April 21, 2013


I'm feeling pretty comfortable leaving the political analysis in the hands of Bostonian MeFites

but only if they own boats.....and observe Talk Like A Pirate Day

otherwise, I expect that people will need to find comfort in those commenting from afar.
posted by lampshade at 12:31 AM on April 21, 2013


Well, rollbiz, my read was based on news photographs, obviously a potentially biased data source; but census data shows me that Watertown (and the neighborhood they call "East Watertown" for what that's worth, which includes pretty much all the hard lockdown area) is a) overwhelmingly white (80-90%) and has a median income some $20K higher than the state overall, which pretty much defines middle class (and personally, I usually consider teachers middle class, but I don't know MA pay scales). The boat crack was, as is increasingly clear a risky thing to do in this thread, a jokey aside. I stand by my statement, even though it was only illustrative of a more general point, which I would hope would meet with broad agreement.
posted by dhartung at 1:16 AM on April 21, 2013 [1 favorite]


Does anyone know where the homeless were expected to go during the lockdown?
posted by aniola at 2:23 AM on April 21, 2013 [2 favorites]


If anybody's interested, here are links to the most recent (2007-2011) American Community Survey numbers, for both Watertown and the overall Metro Boston area. (I understand Western Mass is generally considered different culturally, so the metro seems like a better comparison.) I've provided my comments.

Economic Characteristics
:
Watertown seems quite similar to Metro Boston as a whole. The workforce is similar, in terms of workforce participation, industries and occupations. Watertown seems to have a couple percent fewer people who are retired. Incomes are also similar, with Watertown having somewhat fewer people at the extremes. Median household income is 76.7K in Watertown versus 71.9K in Metro Boston; however, Metro Boston has higher rates of both HH over $200K income (8.8% vs. 6.0%) and under $25K (18.3% vs. 14.7%). This might skew people's perspectives of Watertown; seen from some places, it is poorer and from other it is richer.

Demographic characteristics:
Watertown has more adults, with fewer children than Boston as a whole. (86.1% vs. 78.5% are 18 and older). Watertown is whiter than Boston; (85.8% vs. 79.1%), with the difference coming from fewer African Americans (2.9% vs. 7.4%) and Hispanics (4.3% vs. 9.1%). The Asian population is similar.

Social Characteristics:
Watertown seems to have fewer children than Boston as a whole (21.7% vs 31.7% of households have someone under 18). It also has more "nonfamily households" (46.9% vs. 36.8%; a nonfamily household is either a single person, or unmarried adults living together, and it seems like Watertown has a mix of both.) Watertown has more people with a college education (54.6% vs 42.6%), although Boston's not a big college town.

However, Watertown is also a place with substantially more immigrants; 25.9% were born outside the US, versus 16.5% for the whole metro. And 31.8% speak a language other than English at home, versus 22.3% for the entire metro. The ancestry information is less than helpful the way it is broken out, so I went to the Place of Birth for foreign-born table; this is the one with a clear message. There are a handful of countries of origin that are notable for Watertown. It has about 1 in 90 of the foreign born residents of Metro Boston (with only 1 in 143 of the total residents of the metro area). However, Watertown has 1 of 20 Greeks and Iranians, and 1 in 10 from Western Asia, with particularly large populations from Lebanon (1 in 6) and Armenia (1 in 3 Bostonians born in Armenia live in Watertown). This is a population that is usually classed as White for statistical analysis.

So broadly, I would call Watertown a middle-class suburb, with a notable multicultural population, primarily from the parts of the world where they eat pita. Which is an interesting dynamic given the history of association of terrorism with people of Middle Eastern descent in America.
posted by Homeboy Trouble at 2:41 AM on April 21, 2013 [8 favorites]


primarily from the parts of the world where they eat pita.

I get that this is just a turn of phrase, but as a point of anecdote, Egypt is the only place I've ever encountered pita, although I understand it's common in Israel as well.

This would suggest that it might be available in Jordan (where I haven't been yet) but I have no memory of seeing it in Syria at all, so Jordan may be out as well. Lebanese bread is notably different: much flatter, thinner & larger, and the Syrian version was basically the same as that. Iranian flatbread is completely different & totally delicious. More like a doughy Afghan bread, halfway towards being a larger version of Indian naan, but without so much of the tandoori charred-ness.

Curiously, the Turks are crazy for white Vienna loaves. I never once saw in Turkey itself the bread that's ubiquitously known in my parts, and sold by Turkish bakeries, as "Turkish bread". That's an even doughier relative of Iranian bread, about 2 feet long by a foot wide, and an inch thick, so nothing like pita at all. I have no idea what Armenian bread is like.
posted by UbuRoivas at 3:04 AM on April 21, 2013 [2 favorites]


UbuRovias: if you want Boston MeFites, bobobox lived within earshot of the shootout. You could see which users are close to him.
posted by Elementary Penguin at 3:19 AM on April 21, 2013 [1 favorite]


UbuRoivas: the story of pita is unexpectedly interesting. You would of course think it comes from the Aramaic word "pita", which meant a morsel of bread. In fact this is not the case: it's actually a modern Greek word ("πήττα", "pitta") that came to the Levant via Turkey. The very large very flat bread without a pocket is called "laffa", or apparently "eshtanoor" if you come from Iraq. Shawarma is much better in laffa, but don't eat the doughy folded bit at the end.
posted by Joe in Australia at 3:53 AM on April 21, 2013 [5 favorites]


“But is there anyone in the US for whom a day-long request to shelter in place while police do house-to-house sweeps would have seemed like normal, unremarkable civil procedure two days ago? Whether or not it's technically 'martial law' is pedantry; either way it registers another shift in the way we respond both to terror and to legal authority. I agree that it seems like an utterly terrible precedent to set.”

A few days ago, you didn't have a couple of mad bombers freely roaming around a city and murdering people.
posted by empath at 4:43 AM on April 21, 2013


I get that this is just a turn of phrase, but as a point of anecdote, Egypt is the only place I've ever encountered pita, although I understand it's common in Israel as well.

Though having a flatbread with a pocket and having something called 'pita' (or a cognate) are two different things. Apparently, what's called börek some places is called pita in parts of the Balkans. I'm pretty sure that Turkish bread you described is pide, which I've kind of always assumed is a cognate, though I have no actually good basis for this. I'm just amused by the idea that 'parts of the world where they eat pita' could well be accurate, even if everyone's eating different things.
posted by hoyland at 4:46 AM on April 21, 2013 [1 favorite]


Why are we suddenly debating "cop killers"? It strikes me that there's a difference between "a desperate guy trying to escape who gets into a firefight to cover his escape" and "a guy with a grudge against law enforcement who targets them deliberately."

If you're a desperate man trying to escape capture, your motives aren't deeply philosophical, political, or sociological or whatever, you are operating from a pure lizard brain place of fight-or-flight "MOTHERFUCK GET ME OUT OF HERE AAAAUUUUUGGGGHHHH". Our bombers shooting a cop wasn't "about" anything other than "we need to get the fuck out of here" panic.

It was the initial bombing that was "about" something. If we want to discuss their motives, can we stick to the act that actually had a motive to it?
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 4:56 AM on April 21, 2013 [4 favorites]


(3 out of previous 6 comments were on bread)
Why are we suddenly debating "cop killers"?

Donuts have not been brought into this worldly discussion about flatbread.

Also, any discussion which evolves from a terrorist firefight to one on semantic identification of bread means things are returning to normal.
posted by Nanukthedog at 5:04 AM on April 21, 2013 [3 favorites]


Our bombers shooting a cop wasn't "about" anything other than "we need to get the fuck out of here" panic.

They actually shot the cop in cold blood. They weren't being chased.
posted by empath at 5:06 AM on April 21, 2013 [4 favorites]


Seems way too early to have an informed debate about their motives, considering one is dead, the other can't speak, and the investigators have just begun.
posted by benbenson at 5:20 AM on April 21, 2013 [1 favorite]


On the other hand, it is never too early for an informed discussion on regional bread products.
posted by sonika at 5:23 AM on April 21, 2013 [17 favorites]


From the Boston Herald:
Officials had previously said that Collier was responding to a “disturbance” at Main and Vassar streets about 10:30 p.m., but a spokesman for the Middlesex District Attorney’s Office yesterday corrected that statement, saying the officer “was not responding to anything.”

“He was just sitting in his car, sort of in a routine patrol location,” Middlesex District Attorney spokeswoman Stephanie Chelf Guyotte said. “There’s no indication of whether they had a previous interaction. We do believe he was assassinated.”

[...]

Massachusetts State Police Col. Timothy Alben said it baffled him to learn the suspects gunned down Collier with no provocation whatsoever.

“There’s no more logic to this than there is in placing a bomb behind an 8-year-old boy and women and blowing them to death,” Alben said. “It evades any kind of human decency whatsoever, and the same thing holds true with Officer Collier at MIT.”

Collier “did not return fire,” Guyotte said. “All indications are they approached the officer and they shot him.” His colleagues found him with multiple gunshot wounds, and he was pronounced dead at Massachusetts General Hospital.
posted by Rhomboid at 5:31 AM on April 21, 2013 [2 favorites]


Shooting some random police officer was certainly not more thought-out than the rest of their plan; and because they didn't have money set aside or any escape route planned I think it's clear that planning was not their strong suit. So the cop-killing was a spur of the moment thing, either because they were scared, or the cop was on to them, or out of viciousness.
posted by Joe in Australia at 5:40 AM on April 21, 2013


Pretty incredible footage of the thermal imaging video of Jahar in the boat. Looks like he was mostly unresponsive, but at the end he sort of moves his arm and his head? Tough to tell.
posted by (Arsenio) Hall and (Warren) Oates at 5:51 AM on April 21, 2013 [3 favorites]


I like what someone else up thread said: they didn't expect to be photographed, so when the FBI released a bunch of pictures of them on Thursday they freaked out. Dzhokhar went back to school like nothing had happened, so maybe they just expected to get away with it.
posted by Elementary Penguin at 5:56 AM on April 21, 2013 [2 favorites]


Yes, everything does seem to imply that they did not expect to be caught:
  • He was seen at a party at his college later that day after the bombing
  • His car was in the shop being repaired
  • He tweeted casually ("Ain't no love in the heart of the city, stay safe people.")
  • He logged on to social media (VKontakte)
What is so baffling is that there was clearly some planning involved (like researching the use of a pressure cooker), but not enough forethought to realize that there would be thousands of cameras covering practically every angle of the event, and that it would be a virtual certainty that they would be identified. And yet minimal steps were taken to conceal their identity -- Dzhokhar didn't even bother wearing sunglasses like his brother.

Perhaps they knew they'd be identified, but they only underestimated the time frame.
posted by Rhomboid at 6:08 AM on April 21, 2013 [6 favorites]


Or perhaps they just didn't give a shit, knew they'd probably eventually get caught and wanted to go out in a blaze of glory? They didn't have a getaway car -- but they did have a car full of bombs. If anything, it sounds like they wanted one last night of mayhem. Who knows if that's true -- but right now it makes just as much sense as anything else that's out there. We just don't know. Anybody saying anything definitive sounds kinda silly.

Does anyone know of a place where ALL relevant/interesting pictures are being gathered? I keep seeing new pictures pop up on different sites/stories I'm going to, and I'm wondering if there is a collection of images and possibly even with a timeline.
posted by (Arsenio) Hall and (Warren) Oates at 6:13 AM on April 21, 2013 [1 favorite]


What's the first thing a Uni Police officer does when he encounters to kids that might be students hanging around, possibly up to late night mischief late at night*? He rolls down his window, asks them what they are up to and gives them the authoritative "Are you supposed to be there?" implied posturing. For most kids, they shrug and either move on or make a comment about donuts and move on.

I'd imagine if you've just executed a bombing a few days prior, you have bombs and guns in your possession, and you don't have a lot of experience with this sort of thing, you react poorly. Here's the thing folks should really be asking: Why did they have bombs with them that night?

I doubt it was for one last night of mayhem, more than likely it was to set up for the next morning. The night of mayhem was a byproduct of not keeping their cool.

Officer Collier died a hero. When he was killed, he may not know who he found, what they were up to, or what they had with them - but he was the catalyst for ending a week of anxiety and fear.

* At my school I had a few experiences being stopped by campus cops while carrying large tarp signs saying things like "look up!" and "hello!" as well as keys to various building roofs.
posted by Nanukthedog at 6:19 AM on April 21, 2013 [8 favorites]


NYT reported yesterday that Tamerlan, in the final shoot out, came out from behind cover and just walked straight at the police, guns blazing. So I think it's fair to say he was beyond caring about his own life at that point, if he ever did.
posted by seemoreglass at 6:21 AM on April 21, 2013 [2 favorites]


He was seen at a party at his college later that day after the bombing

For me, this is the least explicable part of the whole saga. It's like he blacked out or something. I really cannot understand this reaction at all. No one has said anything negative about the guy except for the uncle he hasn't seen in seven years. There hasn't been a single "well, now that you mention it..." reaction from his friends. I just find it incredibly odd. I'm not absolving him of any responsibility whatsoever, but I hope we find out what the hell happened.
posted by desjardins at 6:30 AM on April 21, 2013 [9 favorites]


An extreme adaptibility to compartmentalize? He's got one life with his brother that is heading in one direction, but the rest of the time he's just himself, a weed smoking 19 year old that isn't performing to potential at school without any guidance or plan.

That would explain the lack of regard for disguise. It's like he didn't care. He had gone along with his brother and WHAT? WE'RE DOING THIS THING? I was kind of in a fog at nineteen. I wound up in places I didn't mean to be doing things I hadn't planned on doing. In retrospect I called it one of my "bubble being carried by the wind" years. I can't imagine carrying out a mass murder, but I've also always been a pacifist. This is extermely weird but I can see how it could happen.

Not that he's not culpable.
posted by readery at 6:49 AM on April 21, 2013 [6 favorites]


I think "sociopath" is the word you're looking for, desjardins.
posted by BobbyVan at 6:49 AM on April 21, 2013


Boston bomb suspect cannot speak as doctors treat throat wounds
"They say it appears from the wound that he might have stuck a gun in his mouth and fired," said the report, which added that Tsarnaev could understand what those around him were saying.
posted by BobbyVan at 6:53 AM on April 21, 2013


Nanukthedog: Officer Collier died a hero.

Not to be snarky or anything, but how so?
From what I understand it is not even known whether there was any interaction with the two brothers.
Is it the fact that he was shot on duty that makes him a hero? Or the fact that he was shot by terrorists? Is the 8-year-hold who died in the attack also a hero?
posted by sour cream at 6:58 AM on April 21, 2013


What's the first thing a Uni Police officer does when he encounters to kids that might be students hanging around, possibly up to late night mischief late at night*? He rolls down his window, asks them what they are up to and gives them the authoritative "Are you supposed to be there?" implied posturing. For most kids, they shrug and either move on or make a comment about donuts and move on.

This may be what happened, and the policeman seems to have been attentive and friendly according to students. But I'd add that the location of the shooting, based on the Tech's aerial photo, was almost right outside the MIT Stata Center where the CS department is at. Students (or people dressed like students) around there late night would have drawn minimal attention. Then again, not every day is four days after a bombing.
posted by shortfuse at 7:07 AM on April 21, 2013


I think you're a hero if you're willing to lay your life on the line in the course of your job. I mean, he probably didn't have an inkling that it would happen that particular night, but in taking that job, he knew it was a possibility, and he took it anyway.
posted by desjardins at 7:09 AM on April 21, 2013 [4 favorites]


Another description, from the Washington Post:
Just after 10:30 p.m. Thursday, the pair walked up to a parked police car at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where Sean Collier, a 26-year-old campus officer, was nearing the end of his 3-to-11 p.m. shift.

A security camera would later show two men approaching the car and speaking to the officer. Abruptly, one of the men was seen pulling a gun and shooting Collier multiple times, including once in the head. Some officers concluded that the shooting was an effort to provoke a larger confrontation with police.

“They were looking to start something,” one official said.
posted by Rhomboid at 7:09 AM on April 21, 2013 [2 favorites]


It doesn't surprise me that Tsarnaev went back to school and "acted normal" after the bombing -- best way not to call attention to himself. It's consistent with the whole Leopold and Loeb, DC snipers vibe wafting off this thing. Dzhokhar may claim his actions were rooted in religion or political radicalism, but this guy just doesn't come off as any sort of actual fanatic or fundamentalist. Tamerlan does a bit more -- even if he was attempting to conceal or downplay his "awakening," people around him noticed and he couldn't/didn't stop himself from mouthing off to the imam, for instance. I imagine he might've had a harder time maintaining a facade between Tue and Thu. Have you ever known a "true believer" in anything who could manage to shut up about it for several days in a row?
posted by FelliniBlank at 7:27 AM on April 21, 2013 [5 favorites]




Desjardins, that link goes back to this thread.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 7:34 AM on April 21, 2013


Reddit is Metafilter. WAKE UP MEEPLE!
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 7:38 AM on April 21, 2013 [16 favorites]


Here's the correct link:

Family of missing student falsely named as Boston terror suspect bombarded with hate messages


Redditors aren't the only ones who should be ashamed of themselves over that shit.
posted by FelliniBlank at 7:40 AM on April 21, 2013 [3 favorites]


Wow:

Officials from the Federal Bureau of Investigation visited them to offer support, he said, and were forced to name the real suspects, Tamerlan Tsarnaev and his younger brother Dzhokhar, earlier than they had planned.
posted by mediareport at 7:42 AM on April 21, 2013


best way not to call attention to himself

What causes the change from not wanting to call attention to one's self to walking up to an officer in a parked car and callously shooting him in the head? Was it the fact that their pictures had been circulating? But they had to know that would happen, so why bother trying to hide at first?

Ugh. It's not worth trying to know the unknowable at this point.
posted by Rhomboid at 7:44 AM on April 21, 2013 [1 favorite]


Officials from the Federal Bureau of Investigation visited them to offer support, he said, and were forced to name the real suspects, Tamerlan Tsarnaev and his younger brother Dzhokhar, earlier than they had planned.

A cop is dead right now because of reddit, basically.
posted by empath at 7:46 AM on April 21, 2013 [4 favorites]


I was surprised to read in that Washington Post article that the identification of the suspects from the photos came from their aunt, not the facial recognition software or public records databases.
posted by Dr. Zira at 7:47 AM on April 21, 2013 [1 favorite]


Not to be snarky or anything, but how so?

There are valid and interesting questions to ask about the nature of hero, whether they're born or made and whether cops are heroes by default, along with many others.

I'm content to label Sean Collier a hero without answering any of these questions in his case. He's dead, nothing good will come of deciding "no he wasn't a hero, he was just some cop who was in the wrong place at the wrong time"

He was killed in the line of duty, on a job where that was possibility every minute of the day. Not just when he was on duty, but every damn minute. He signed up for the job anyway and by all accounts was not only a good cop, but good cop, one who took the idea of "protect and serve" to heart.

Goddamn right he's a hero.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 7:48 AM on April 21, 2013 [11 favorites]


I was surprised to read in that Washington Post article that the identification of the suspects from the photos came from their aunt, not the facial recognition software or public records databases.

Surprised in what way? If they had been able to ID them that way then they wouldn't have needed to host a press conference asking people to help ID them.
posted by (Arsenio) Hall and (Warren) Oates at 7:48 AM on April 21, 2013


A cop is dead right now because of reddit, basically.

Hadn't considered this. Holy crap, an interesting and scary thought.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 7:49 AM on April 21, 2013


Is "The Mirror" a rubbish paper? (Honestly don't know) FBI Hunting 12-Person Sleeper Cell
posted by (Arsenio) Hall and (Warren) Oates at 7:50 AM on April 21, 2013 [1 favorite]


A cop is dead right now because of reddit, basically.

That's a reddit-sized leap to conclusion.
posted by benbenson at 7:50 AM on April 21, 2013 [13 favorites]


I'll be interested to find out if they were planning to go to New York as they reportedly/allegedly said to the guy they carjacked. Dzhokhar's Twitter mentions being in NYC a couple-few times in the past several months or year, which I'm sure means nothing at all.
posted by FelliniBlank at 7:52 AM on April 21, 2013


Tsarnaev's going back to campus for a day supports what I've thought for some time -- that he and his brother fully expected to get away with this. The prospect of the FBI sifting through thousands of scene photographs and singling them out just didn't occur to them.

I think that the younger Tsarnaev was able to regard this as a "cool thing he did," and due to a deficient moral development, was relatively untroubled by it. While there was something missing in the younger brother's development, the older brother was likely more ideologically motivated. But both thought they would get away with it.

This, to me, explains the ferocity of their escape attempts ... they just could not wrap their minds around what was happening, it didn't seem right, thinking "how could they know it's us when there were so many thousands of people? it was a madhouse! Somehow they figured it out! Fuck!"

I think they both believed they should justly get away with this.
posted by Unified Theory at 7:53 AM on April 21, 2013 [7 favorites]


I'm confused as to how the FBI were forced to name suspects as the photos were released Thursday night without names and, IIRC, the Tsarnaev brothers weren't identified until after they'd shot Collier. I remember waking up Friday to hearing the suspects were Chechen brothers whereas I did not know this Thursday night.

Were their names released earlier and I'm misremembering or is that article misleading? Or both?

I also can't grok being at any event in Boston where people are talking about wanting to catch the perpetrator(s) of the bombing and being the guy that did it. What do you say? "Oh yeah, that guy should totally rot in hell." while simultaneously feeling proud of yourself? Gives me chills thinking about that kind of emotional disconnect.
posted by sonika at 7:57 AM on April 21, 2013 [1 favorite]


(Arsenio) Hall and (Warren) Oates: "Surprised in what way? If they had been able to ID them that way then they wouldn't have needed to host a press conference asking people to help ID them."

That's the first news account I've read stating that the positive ID came from their aunt. It all went down so quickly, and the IDs occurred overnight late Thursday/early Friday, I guess I thought it was something they'd pieced together from the security footage at the convenience store, or maybe something uncovered while they were on the run after the officer shooting.
posted by Dr. Zira at 8:00 AM on April 21, 2013


The prospect of the FBI sifting through thousands of scene photographs and singling them out just didn't occur to them.

This is isn't surprising if you consider that Tamerlan was probably the leader and he had no American friends and was quoted as saying "I don't understand them," even as he hoped to get on the American Olympic boxing team. It sounds like he didn't know what he didn't know.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 8:00 AM on April 21, 2013


A cop is dead right now because of reddit, basically.

No, a cop is dead right now because the bombers shot him.
posted by MissySedai at 8:00 AM on April 21, 2013 [13 favorites]


I'm confused as to how the FBI were forced to name suspects as the photos were released Thursday night without names and, IIRC, the Tsarnaev brothers weren't identified until after they'd shot Collier. I remember waking up Friday to hearing the suspects were Chechen brothers whereas I did not know this Thursday night.

Pretty sure they were only able to name them after getting calls after the press conference on Thursday. I read that the pictures they had were not clear enough to find a match in their database. More and better/clearer photos came in after the press conference -- those two things, the better photos and the names provided by tipsters (including the aunt) allowed them to identify the suspects. Then, of course, after the older brother was killed and ID'd (fingerprints), they knew definitively that the other suspect was Dzhokhar.
posted by (Arsenio) Hall and (Warren) Oates at 8:03 AM on April 21, 2013 [1 favorite]


Sonika, that came up in a Wash Post article posted earlier by gerryblog. The FBI released the photos of the as-yet-unnamed suspects on Thu in part because of the Internet sleuthery clusterfuck.
posted by FelliniBlank at 8:04 AM on April 21, 2013 [2 favorites]


Is "The Mirror" a rubbish paper? (Honestly don't know) FBI Hunting 12-Person Sleeper Cell
The Mirror is not as bad as some papers but you definitely want it from another source before believing it fully.
posted by Jehan at 8:04 AM on April 21, 2013


The one detail that doesn't jibe with my "they thought they'd get away with it" theory is this ...

If they didn't expect to get caught, then why did they have all the homemade grenades, guns and ammo, and additional pressure cooker bomb? Did they make those in the hours after their pics were released? Were those things leftover from the main attack at the marathon?
posted by Unified Theory at 8:05 AM on April 21, 2013


They may have intended to get away with more attacks.
posted by FelliniBlank at 8:06 AM on April 21, 2013


He didn't just go back for a day. From CNN:
Dzhokar Tsarnaev, 19, was on the campus of University of Massachusetts-Dartmouth every day after the attack until late Thursday, a university official told CNN. Tsarnaev attended classes and dorm parties while the rest of Boston came to a tense standstill.

A student at the school told The Boston Globe that she saw Tsarnaev at a party Wednesday night that was attended by some of his friends from intramural soccer.

"He was just relaxed," she said, asking the paper not to print her name.
And yes, awkward:
At the dorm where Tsarnaev lived, students joked Thursday as they viewed the FBI photos on television, a senior who lived in the suspect's dorm told The Boston Globe.

"We made a joke like, that could be Dzhokar," said Pamala Rolon. "But then we thought it just couldn't be him. Dzhokar? Never."
posted by Rhomboid at 8:07 AM on April 21, 2013 [1 favorite]


Man, imagine if one of his friends had called the FBI on Thursday. The aunt who identified them might not have known where they were, but his friends would be able to pin down his location much more easily.
posted by desjardins at 8:09 AM on April 21, 2013 [1 favorite]


benbenson: "That's a reddit-sized leap to conclusion."

I think the logic behind this argument is that the FBI's earlier-than-planned release of the suspect's photos initiated the suspects' panicked ill-planned escape, (shooting the officer at MIT and their carjacking). Until that point, the suspects were carrying on their daily routines and lying low, and the police could have dispatched undercover surveillance teams to track them and plan a more controlled arrest.

The counter argument is that the release of the photos was the reason they were able to ID them, so without the release at that time, they could have executed more attacks before the suspects were identified by law enforcement.

That's why I was interested in the fact that the ID came from their aunt/external tips.
posted by Dr. Zira at 8:11 AM on April 21, 2013 [4 favorites]


I play volleyball at the Cambridge Rindge & Latin School weekday nights and weekends. Got an email this morning that the regular Sunday pickup volleyball has been cancelled because they're doing a security sweep. Just being thorough, I imagine.
posted by shortfuse at 8:13 AM on April 21, 2013


One MeFite: A cop is dead right now because of reddit, basically.

MissySedai: No, a cop is dead right now because the bombers shot him.

I agree with MissySedai.

However you may feel about Reddit's search for suspects, you really cannot deny that it was well-intentioned, exhaustive (at least relative to the photos they had access to), and the threads were full of admonitions not to jump to conclusions.

And it was hard not to believe that it was POSSIBLE that this police search would be massively aided by the crowdsourced effort. It turns out that it was not, at least directly. But you have to admit that it could have been helpful, had Reddit had more photos.

But one thing occurred to me just now. What if the Reddit search actually helped the police clear certain suspects more quickly? For example, blue-jacket guy rushed to a police station in horror and dismay when he realized he was a suspect.

I just think it is very unfair to blame Reddit for the MIT officer getting killed. People discussing possible suspects in a way that happens to be public -- well, they're doing what they are entitled to do, and what you would expect them to do in an internet-enabled era. To posit that these internet discussants are to blame for the officer's death, because those discussions led police to release pics of the real suspects more quickly and made the real suspects desperate, whereupon they killed the officer ...

No.

They killed the officer because they were depraved killers.
posted by Unified Theory at 8:17 AM on April 21, 2013 [7 favorites]


What if the Reddit search actually helped the police clear certain suspects more quickly? For example, blue-jacket guy rushed to a police station in horror and dismay when he realized he was a suspect.

Man, I don't want that kind of "help." Blue-jacket guy was on the cover of the NY Post, he told ABC news he was in fear for his life, etc. If he was a suspect, the FBI would have went to him. He was never a legit suspect.
posted by desjardins at 8:30 AM on April 21, 2013 [12 favorites]


But you have to admit that it could have been helpful, had Reddit had more photos.

From everything I've combed through, the most clear photo of one of the suspects originated in a runner forum (where it might have languished for who knows how long) and was quickly picked up by reddit. It seems to me that Unified Theory's take on this is best: Reddit was trying to help. They fucked it up, no doubt, but you know, we, as a community, didn't do the greatest either.

I spent a good part of those two nights on reddit, refreshing (they did an excellent job on their live update threads, fwiw), and I watched the mods in that sub make a very clear stance that certain things were not allowed. They were actively deleting whole swaths of utter shit. And they were fighting a ddos attack throughout that time as well and most likely dealing with an insane amount of traffic and posts.

Saying that reddit was responsible for Collier's death is quite a stretch and I don't think it's one we should be making. I trust the mainstream media will examine that aspect to death in the coming weeks. I'd rather them be the harbingers of that shit instead of us here at metafilter.
posted by youandiandaflame at 8:35 AM on April 21, 2013 [5 favorites]


I know some of the mainstream media ran with the Tripathi thing and then had to retract it, but did any of them say "after our own independent investigation of the pictures, we think it was This Guy"? I can't imagine a major, non-skeezy media outlet doing that.
posted by desjardins at 8:43 AM on April 21, 2013


The absurd idea that the Reddit search helped police clear suspects more quickly is not supported by reported facts. Anyone who thinks they have an opinion about empath's provocative comment needs to read yesterday's detailed WaPo article about the investigation, linked by gerryblog last night, and *then* form an opinion. Some interesting excerpts:

In addition to being almost universally wrong, the theories developed via social media complicated the official investigation, according to law enforcement officials. Those officials said Saturday that the decision on Thursday to release photos of the two men in baseball caps was meant in part to limit the damage being done to people who were wrongly being targeted as suspects in the news media and on the Internet...

Investigators didn’t want to risk having news outlets put out the Tsarnaevs’ images first, which might have made them the object of a wave of popular sympathy for wrongly suspected people, as had happened with two high school runners from the Boston area whose photos were published on the front page of the New York Post under the headline “Bag Men.” At the news conference, FBI Special Agent in Charge Richard DesLauriers sternly asked the public to view only its pictures or risk creating “undue work for vital law enforcement resources.”

...Investigators were concerned that if they didn’t assert control over the release of the Tsarnaevs’ photos, their manhunt would become a chaotic free-for-all, with news media cars and helicopters, as well as online vigilante detectives, competing with police in the chase to find the suspects. By stressing that all information had to flow to 911 and official investigators, the FBI hoped to cut off that freelance sleuthing...

Davis said he was told that facial-recognition software did not identify the men in the ball caps. The technology came up empty even though both Tsarnaevs’ images exist in official databases...

The police commissioner said releasing images of the brothers may have spurred their violent rampage. “We may have forced their hands by releasing the videos,” he said. But he said that was nonetheless the right move: “I truly believe they were planning more attacks, based on the evidence we saw at Watertown. I think that by forcing their hand, we saved a much larger loss of life. . . . These individuals were bent on murder and mayhem.”


Also, for folks like me who were still confused about the 7-Eleven connection:

On Thursday evening, police responding to a robbery at a 7-Eleven in Cambridge examined surveillance video and noticed that in addition to the robber, the convenience store had been visited that night by two men who looked like the bombing suspects.
posted by mediareport at 8:44 AM on April 21, 2013 [7 favorites]


A few people have implied that finding footage of the bombers from the marathon was pretty much an inevitability...

Is this true? From what I understand, it was Bauman (sp?), the poor guy who lost both legs, who was able to tell officials what the bombers looked like. Without him, isn't it quite possible that officials never would've been able to piece together who the bombers were from the footage?
posted by meese at 8:44 AM on April 21, 2013 [4 favorites]


And then their aunt called authorities to identify them from the photos.
posted by mediareport at 8:47 AM on April 21, 2013


Without him, isn't it quite possible that officials never would've been able to piece together who the bombers were from the footage?

Surveillance video from the Boston Marathon attack shows one suspect dropping his backpack and calmly walking away from it before the bomb inside it exploded, Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick said Sunday.
posted by (Arsenio) Hall and (Warren) Oates at 8:47 AM on April 21, 2013


meese, no, I don't think that's true. Obviously we don't have all the FBI footage, but I believe they had more than enough to release those photos/videos confidently.
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 8:48 AM on April 21, 2013


Oh, I see!

I'd heard of "footage of one dropping his backpack," but I had mistakenly thought this referred only to that photo with White Hat, the backpack by the tree, and the poor young boy. Sounds like they have a lot more footage they haven't released to the public.
posted by meese at 8:51 AM on April 21, 2013


From the other linked articles, I think we can expand the blame on Internet sleuthing to "The Internet." Reddit may be a huge site and definitely a part of the amateur detective problem, but it seems unfair to say that that one site was specifically the problem when speculation was happening *everywhere.*
posted by sonika at 8:51 AM on April 21, 2013 [2 favorites]


We have no idea how quickly the FBI would have been able to identify the bombers without Bauman's help - "A man in sunglasses and black baseball cap had walked right up to him, placed a black backpack on the ground and stepped away, Bauman remembered" - and no idea how clear the video is that the governor mentions.
posted by mediareport at 8:52 AM on April 21, 2013


The police commissioner said releasing images of the brothers may have spurred their violent rampage.

You gotta admit it's kinda funny to assert that the rampage started AFTER they had already killed three people and wounded/maimed 176?

I think it's fair to say they were ALREADY on a violent rampage, and that publicly examining photos of those present is fair game under those circumstances, but maybe that's just me.
posted by Unified Theory at 8:54 AM on April 21, 2013 [4 favorites]


From everything I've combed through, the most clear photo of one of the suspects originated in a runner forum (where it might have languished for who knows how long) and was quickly picked up by reddit.

The man who took the photo said that the moment he recognized "white cap guy" in his pic after the FBI released the videos, he immediately contacted authorities. No crowd-sourcing whatsoever needed there.
posted by FelliniBlank at 8:55 AM on April 21, 2013 [3 favorites]


mediareport, I don't think anyone's arguing that reddit certainly did not help with the investigation. Some redditors turned out to be assholes that fucked things up. I'd prefer to place more blame on the media that reported things originating on reddit and put them out into the mainstream in the way that they did but I'm sure we've talked enough about how messed up the media was throughout all this in this thread so I'll let that dog lie.

Still, I'm having a hard time feeling that a website is directly culpable for the murder of a police officer by two deranged men.
posted by youandiandaflame at 8:56 AM on April 21, 2013


Do we know at this point how many additional bombs/guns they had?
posted by LobsterMitten at 8:57 AM on April 21, 2013


that is, in addition to the two bombsused at the marathon? I am wondering if we have a sense of what their original plan was for post-marathon.

If they had enough explosives to escape with duffle bags (??) full of pipe bombs and be throwing them at police, and enough guns/ammo to engage in a protracted firefight, that does not sound like guys that are intending to slip quietly away without hurting anyone else. I am again so impressed with the way law enforcement handled this, after the guys started shooting.
posted by LobsterMitten at 9:00 AM on April 21, 2013 [3 favorites]


I can't find the cite, but I believe I remember the news reports saying there were 7 IEDs involved in Thursday nights events. There's was at least one pressure cooker bomb (which seems to argue they may have been planning another attack) and several home made "grenades".
posted by gofargogo at 9:00 AM on April 21, 2013


The more I think about this, the more I wonder if it's a situation similar to the Lafferty Brothers from "Under the Banner of Heaven."
posted by drezdn at 9:02 AM on April 21, 2013 [1 favorite]


Something else to consider re: Dzhokhar partying on Wednesday night. Keep in mind that the all-day CNN clusterfuck on Wednesday had most of the country thinking that the perpetrators were either arrested or in custody. They were probably feeling like they got away with it and that the police had apprehended the wrong person(s).
posted by (Arsenio) Hall and (Warren) Oates at 9:03 AM on April 21, 2013 [3 favorites]


It's not just communities; it was individual people saying reckless and irresponsible things, repeating rumors. It was a cascading shutdown of logic, critical thinking, and skepticism. It was hundreds of people going to YouTube and Facebook and saying vicious, appalling shit to the family members of a missing, possibly troubled or worse man -- and just totally ignoring anyone who asked them to stop or even pause to consider the potential consequences.

I'm sure that right now, most of the same people who hate-messaged the innocent guy's family are hate-messaging the Tsarnaev brothers' family and friends. And that's no less horrible.
posted by FelliniBlank at 9:06 AM on April 21, 2013 [10 favorites]


Still, I'm having a hard time feeling that a website is directly culpable for the murder of a police officer by two deranged men.

I share your feeling, especially after reading that WaPo article in full. I'm happy investigative Redditors got their righteousness pulled down a peg and am hopeful that might make the site's moderators more humane in future episodes, but don't myself go as far as empath. Like I said, it was a provocative comment. Worth thinking about, even if you end up not agreeing.
posted by mediareport at 9:07 AM on April 21, 2013 [2 favorites]


I can't find the cite, but I believe I remember the news reports saying there were 7 IEDs involved in Thursday nights events.
Even if you had a cite I wouldn't put much stock in anything the news reported.
posted by fullerine at 9:21 AM on April 21, 2013 [1 favorite]


Marcy Wheeler: The Shut-Down Question
posted by tonycpsu at 9:22 AM on April 21, 2013


CNN: Official: Boston bombing suspect suffers throat injury, may not be able to talk
Yeah, well, if he's still able to type we'll muddle through.
If there is spinal cord injury/paralysis all bets are off.
posted by mazola at 9:30 AM on April 21, 2013


If there is spinal cord injury/paralysis all bets are off.

So what happens in a case where a defendant is unable to testify on his own behalf?
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 9:32 AM on April 21, 2013


Criminal defendants rarely testify. Too risky.
posted by empath at 9:41 AM on April 21, 2013 [1 favorite]


So what happens in a case where a defendant is unable to testify on his own behalf?

That's a really interesting question. Part of the answer may turn on whether he's unable to testify due to a self-inflicted gunshot wound (which is what one report suggested). If he is the cause for his own inability to testify I would think the court could deem the right to testify on one's own behalf waived? Similar to how a defendant who kills a witness can be deemed to have waived the right to confront that witness and thus hearsay statements of that witness become admissible? I don't know, just thinking out loud here.
posted by Unified Theory at 9:43 AM on April 21, 2013


Criminal defendants rarely testify. Too risky

That's surely true, but probably not codified in law.
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 9:45 AM on April 21, 2013


Defendants never have to testify on their own behalf. Putting a defendant on the stand to testify on her own behalf is a risky decision, because you open up your defendant to incriminating herself on cross examination.
posted by Dr. Zira at 9:47 AM on April 21, 2013


Do defendants need to be able to "assist in the preparation of" their own defense, though?

I imagine even if he were paralyzed and unable to speak, they could still work something out with eye movements. But does anybody know what they do for people who are eg in comas?
posted by LobsterMitten at 9:47 AM on April 21, 2013


Testifying isn't the issue. Participating in his own defense is the issue. I've already been wondering which Big Name defense counsel will volunteer, because one of them will. Having a client who can't speak or perhaps even write adds a whole new wrinkle to the defense.
posted by ambrosia at 9:48 AM on April 21, 2013 [1 favorite]


ambrosia, I read yesterday at the Public Defender's Office has already thrown their hat in the ring.
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 9:49 AM on April 21, 2013


due to a self-inflicted gunshot wound (which is what one report suggested)

That's not clear at this point. Remember, police fired repeatedly into the boat.
posted by mediareport at 9:49 AM on April 21, 2013


Maybe I am mistaken but didn't Dzhokhar surrender after negotiation? Surely he could still speak at that point and can't have shot himself (or been shot) later?
posted by Jehan at 9:54 AM on April 21, 2013


ambrosia, I read yesterday at the Public Defender's Office has already thrown their hat in the ring.

The Federal public defender's office is well suited to this kind of case. They are very good and will almost certainly handle this over any "big name" volunteer.
posted by Unified Theory at 9:54 AM on April 21, 2013 [2 favorites]


Deval Patrick on Meet The Press: ‘‘It does seem to be pretty clear that this suspect took the backpack off, put it down, did not react when the first explosion went off and then moved away from the backpack in time for the second explosion,’’ Patrick said. ‘‘It’s pretty clear about his involvement and pretty chilling, frankly.’’

Only adding this to the conversation because holy shit, "pretty chilling" does not even begin to cover that. Patrick also says they don't know that they've ever be able to question the suspect due to his injuries.
posted by youandiandaflame at 9:55 AM on April 21, 2013 [1 favorite]


I remember something in the confusion about the police firing in to the boat in response to a gunshot. I wonder if he wasn't just attempting to end it himself and was not successful.
posted by readery at 9:55 AM on April 21, 2013


Also: Menino said it has become clear that the older brother, Tamerlan, was the more influential, describing him the “leader” and the 19-year-old Dzhokhar as a “follower.”

“His [older] brother read those magazines that are published on how to create bombs…,” Menino said.

Menino defended the decision to ask Boston residents to remain in their homes and not venture onto streets on Friday, because of the potential threat of more violence and the ongoing manhunt for Dzhokhar.

“I had information that there was other things going on during the [time the] decision that was made,” he said. “At that time, we found a pipe bomb in another location in our city of Boston, another individual was taken into custody in another location.’’ He did not elaborate on the discovery of the other pipe bomb.

posted by youandiandaflame at 9:56 AM on April 21, 2013


I am not a doctor, but I would assume it'd be pretty easy to tell if the gunshot would was self-inflicted in this case. There would only be one hole if he stuck the gun in his mouth.
posted by desjardins at 9:57 AM on April 21, 2013 [1 favorite]


Maybe I am mistaken but didn't Dzhokhar surrender after negotiation? Surely he could still speak at that point and can't have shot himself (or been shot) later?

He got at least one wound from the initial gun battle -- the boat owner saw blood on the tarp and a pool of blood inside the boat next to the "figure" before he even called the cops on Fri.
posted by FelliniBlank at 9:58 AM on April 21, 2013


Maybe I am mistaken but didn't Dzhokhar surrender after negotiation? Surely he could still speak at that point and can't have shot himself (or been shot) later?

He doesn't have to speak to surrender, all he had to do was come out of the boat. They asked him to lift his shirt (to see that he did not have explosives) and he did.
posted by desjardins at 9:59 AM on April 21, 2013


I was wondering about the surrender. desjardins, do you have a link explaining the events surrounding how he surrendered? There was the picture of him straddling the side of the boat -- if he had enough energy to do that on his own, I'm guessing he's not paralyzed.
posted by (Arsenio) Hall and (Warren) Oates at 10:01 AM on April 21, 2013


He got at least one wound from the initial gun battle -- the boat owner saw blood on the tarp and a pool of blood inside the boat next to the "figure" before he even called the cops on Fri.

He also might have holed up in the boat with his shot leg, at some point during the next 20 hours attempted to kill himself, fucked it up, and then just lay there bleeding until the cops came.
posted by FelliniBlank at 10:03 AM on April 21, 2013


He doesn't have to speak to surrender, all he had to do was come out of the boat. They asked him to lift his shirt (to see that he did not have explosives) and he did.
Okay. I'm likely reading too much into "negotiation". I was picturing a police officer approaching the boat and speaking with him rather than just asking from a distance if he would come out from the boat.
posted by Jehan at 10:10 AM on April 21, 2013


This CBS news video has some detail about the capture. Here's the helicopter video; it was linked previously.
posted by desjardins at 10:13 AM on April 21, 2013




I know the conversation has largely moved on from the "lockdown" aspect, but last year here in Seattle, we had a multiple-victim shooting at a local cafe (Cafe Racer), and the police did indeed ask everyone to stay inside their homes in the surrounding area while they hunted for the shooter. It only took a couple of hours, but I would say that the request was very similar in kind if not in scope. So, doesn't seem all that unprecedented at all, to me.
posted by KathrynT at 10:18 AM on April 21, 2013 [1 favorite]


But does anybody know what they do for people who are eg in comas?

If it is a coma, there is no real communication. Or if there is, anything would be questionable at best.

For this guy with a throat injury, it would not be much different than you would expect - keyboards, note writing etc. The problem is that it puts the person being questioned at a severe disadvantage as they will not be able to reply to questions with any sort of nuance or decent detail. Also, it opens up a whole host of issues with a person who can speak pummeling a person with a barrage of questions before a person typing could reply.

Think of it this way - if you, as a person on MeFi and in this very thread, had to respond to comments that were entered by a person using some vocal recognition software vs you just being able to type out your reply. How much of a disadvantage would that be?

Recipe for disaster for the person being questioned.

Now if the prosecutors decide to use chat room software during the questioning, then the playing field would be a bit more level.
posted by lampshade at 10:25 AM on April 21, 2013


Agreed there is no communication with a person in a coma; that's kind of what I'm wondering about. A coma would be a clear case where the person couldn't assist with the preparation of their own defense, so presumably they can't be taken to trial.

But they say they "may not be able to question" this guy... and we don't know if that's because he has a mechanical problem with speaking/typing, or because he has a brain/cognitive injury that prevents it.

I'm wondering if there's an area where they would be unable to question him, but they could still prosecute him. Or is that ruled out in principle?
posted by LobsterMitten at 10:32 AM on April 21, 2013


Also, it opens up a whole host of issues with a person who can speak pummeling a person with a barrage of questions before a person typing could reply.

This is why a lawyer is essential.
posted by desjardins at 10:34 AM on April 21, 2013


LobsterMitten: "Do defendants need to be able to "assist in the preparation of" their own defense, though?

I imagine even if he were paralyzed and unable to speak, they could still work something out with eye movements. But does anybody know what they do for people who are eg in comas?
"

At the federal trial, the issue of mental competency after the prosecution is commenced is determined at a competency hearing; this is addressed at 18 U.S.C. 4241. However, that statute is mainly concerned with mental competency, not necessarily physical competency. As to physical competency, I'm not sure whether or not there's a specific statute addressing physical competency or whether the issue is wrapped up in confrontation clause analysis. Hopefully someone who practices federal criminal defense can jump in.

At the state level, it's determined by each state's criminal code; I know some states (e.g, IL) have codified requirements for physical competency in addition to mental competency.

Unified Theory: "The Federal public defender's office is well suited to this kind of case. They are very good and will almost certainly handle this over any "big name" volunteer."

Assuming the kid doesn't have financial resources to be able to afford private counsel, I would think that once he invokes his right to counsel, he'd quickly meet with the appointed PD who'd then advise him on his options and then move forward with defense decision. However, while the government appoints the public defender (ought to be different PDs for fed and state prosecutions), the choice of counsel is ultimately defendant's. I think it's a safe bet that given the potential novel legal issues that are going to come up during the prosecution, there will be no shortage of high profile defense attorneys volunteering to take this on. If defendant wants to eschew the appointed public defender in favor of a high profile volunteer defender, or if he's got enough resources to pay for his own defense there's nothing legally stopping him from doing that.

It's going to be interesting to watch how and when he gets his first access to counsel, especially if he's totally secured and isolated from any outside information, e.g, decisions about when they do decide to Mirandize him, whether he's physically able to assert his right to counsel even before they Mirandize him, how feds and state law enforcement are going to coordinate the separate investigations, prosecutions and charging decisions.
posted by Dr. Zira at 10:35 AM on April 21, 2013


I think it's bill burr that has a comedy sketch talking about how when someone shoots up a gas station and indiscriminantly kills a bystander, the witness always says "He was in the wrong place at the wrong time." and burr makes the observation, "Really? where do you go when your car is on 'E'? Its johnny on the spot with an uzi who is in the wrong place at the wrong time."

Collier died a hero because whatever interaction he had with the bombers forced them to make a mistake revealing their location. He did so in a uniform that gave him enough credibility as a threat to the bombers. He was in the right spot at the right time. It is unfortunate for his family and loved ones that he was taken when he was. Some firemen run into burning buildings and are considered heroes. Some people just attach a few hoses to the side of a truck to be considered just as much a hero. Ask a person who's house is saved by the fire department which firemen are heroes and which ones just stood around while their house burned. Collier saved lives by giving his.

Is it possible that the two would have been caught without the death of Collier? Sure; however, whatever they were doing with the additional bomb and grenades may have been very very different.
posted by Nanukthedog at 10:37 AM on April 21, 2013 [9 favorites]


Or is that ruled out in principle?

Well, they can prosecute him all they want. He can be prosecuted for having black hair. The issue for them is that the 5th amendment is supposed to protect him (as long as he is not classified as a combatant). And even then, that classification muddies the prosecutorial waters quite a bit.

As far as Mirandizing, it is my understanding that he simply does not have to answer anyway. Miranda is just a warning that has to be given, it does not mean the person being questioned forfeits their right to remain silent because those 50 or so words were or were not spoken.

(Of course, not being a lawyer myself, I could very well not have this correct. So any person with more of a legal background than me should chime in.)
posted by lampshade at 10:42 AM on April 21, 2013


I'm happy investigative Redditors got their righteousness pulled down a peg and am hopeful that might make the site's moderators more humane in future episodes, but don't myself go as far as empath.

Reddit (well, /r/findthebostonbombers) were already frustrated by the conclusion leaping that was going on. There were several rules in place about not doxxing 'suspects' etc. (That subreddit was closed once police made contact with the suspects.) This was a much broader phenomenon than "reddit" with a lot of the accusations actually circulating on Facebook, YouTube, etc.

Also, if you're going to blame reddit (or the internet) for Collier's death, then you have to credit them for saving untold others from more attacks. As mediareport quoted above:

The police commissioner said releasing images of the brothers may have spurred their violent rampage. “We may have forced their hands by releasing the videos,” he said. But he said that was nonetheless the right move: “I truly believe they were planning more attacks, based on the evidence we saw at Watertown. I think that by forcing their hand, we saved a much larger loss of life. . . . These individuals were bent on murder and mayhem.”
posted by ChurchHatesTucker at 10:42 AM on April 21, 2013 [1 favorite]


Yeah, odd that in retrospect, it looks like they saw a cop and panicked, thinking he was after them when he wasn't. It's really a shame that he lost his life over that mistake, but that was the main thing that led to their capture.
posted by msalt at 10:43 AM on April 21, 2013


"Pretty chilling" is an understatement. I have a sense that Dzhokhar and I may love Breaking Bad for really different reasons.
posted by FelliniBlank at 10:44 AM on April 21, 2013 [1 favorite]


Tangential question: what happens with homeowners' property damage when a shootout/raid/search occurs? There's the boat, obviously, but there were shots fired into residents' walls during the initial shootout on Thursday. Does insurance pay for that? I thought there were standard terrorism exceptions (like Act of God exceptions). I can't imagine the city pays for that if the damage was done in the course of a pursuit/investigation.
posted by desjardins at 10:46 AM on April 21, 2013 [1 favorite]


Yeah, odd that in retrospect, it looks like they saw a cop and panicked, thinking he was after them when he wasn't.

People keep suggesting this -- is it just speculation about motives and/or frame of mind? All of the news reports so far released have stated that surveillance video shows the brothers walked up to Collier's car on their own and shot the police officer while he still had his gun holstered.
posted by (Arsenio) Hall and (Warren) Oates at 10:47 AM on April 21, 2013


it looks like they saw a cop and panicked

Please read the statements being given by investigators. Collier was not after them, and they were not panicked. They walked right up to him and struck up a conversation before pulling out a firearm and firing.
posted by Rhomboid at 10:48 AM on April 21, 2013


desjardins: "Does insurance pay for that?"

There's no way to answer that without knowing the specific policy (e.g., is it HO3 or HO5, open perils or named perils?), and even then, there could be some dispute about the scope of the exclusion language in the policy (e.g, exclusion for vandalism or malicious mischief). As a practical matter, though, can you imagine the bad PR an insurance company would have to face by denying the claim?
posted by Dr. Zira at 10:52 AM on April 21, 2013 [1 favorite]


If defendant wants to eschew the appointed public defender in favor of a high profile volunteer defender, or if he's got enough resources to pay for his own defense there's nothing legally stopping him from doing that.

You may be right, but I would wager fairly confidently that the FPD will get this case and handle it through to its disposition. Here's why:

(1) Almost certainly he doesn't have resources to pay for his defense, esp.in a case of this nature.
(2) Even if there were volunteer attorneys with the requisite experience and mettle to handle this case, there are ethical restrictions on lawyers approaching clients or their families (not sure whether those restrictions would completely bar approaching them in that jurisdiction, but it must be considered).
(3) My sense is that the lawyers who are good and experienced enough to handle a case of this magnitude in all of its dimensions (and that's not a large group) will be respectful and will almost certainly not go trying to take this case from the federal public defender. Those lawyers have plenty of paid work, and no need to interject themselves without an overture from the court.

This is a career-making case for someone and at the highest levels of criminal defense private bar there will be reluctance to go storming in trying to represent this defendant without being approached first.

I'll be watching with interest to see what happens.
posted by Unified Theory at 10:53 AM on April 21, 2013


Just seeing a stationary cop car might have been enough to make them go over and shoot Collier, considering that they knew their faces were all over the news.
posted by FelliniBlank at 10:54 AM on April 21, 2013


Just seeing a stationary cop car might have been enough to make them go over and shoot Collier, considering that they knew their faces were all over the news.

This is a guy (OK, one of them) who went back to his college dorm and parties with his friends after committing murder on a massive terror scale. It doesn't have to make sense.
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 10:56 AM on April 21, 2013


I wonder what Tamerlan did between the bombing and Thursday afternoon.
posted by desjardins at 11:00 AM on April 21, 2013 [4 favorites]


lampshade: "As far as Mirandizing, it is my understanding that he simply does not have to answer anyway. Miranda is just a warning that has to be given, it does not mean the person being questioned forfeits their right to remain silent because those 50 or so words were or were not spoken."

Yes. Miranda becomes important once you have two things: An interrogation of a suspect while in custody. Before that, anything a suspect says to a police officer is basically presumed to be voluntary, which is what trips up suspects because most people don't realize they don't have to answer questions (or consent to a search). But there's nothing (legally) stopping a suspect from asserting their 5A/6A rights before the suspect has been Mirandized. Also, Miranda is an exclusionary/evidentiary rule, so the cops could act on any information gained even if it ultimately isn't admissable (and this is where the "fruit of the poisonous tree" doctrine comes into play.
posted by Dr. Zira at 11:02 AM on April 21, 2013 [1 favorite]


Unified Theory: "Even if there were volunteer attorneys with the requisite experience and mettle to handle this case, there are ethical restrictions on lawyers approaching clients or their families (not sure whether those restrictions would completely bar approaching them in that jurisdiction, but it must be considered)."

Yes, there are ethical restrictions, but this isn't a typical "ambulance chasing" scenario that the MPRE rules you reference were intended to address (e.g., Rules 7.2 - Advertising and 7.3 - Direct Contact). For example, notice particularly the language of 7.3(a), which includes the statement "when a significant motive for the lawyer's doing so is the lawyer's pecuniary gain." If a lawyer/firm licensed to practice publicly volunteers its services, and the family (some of whom are Russian lawyers, no?) hears of this and contacts the firm, an argument of the existence of an ethical violation might be an uphill battle.
posted by Dr. Zira at 11:13 AM on April 21, 2013


I'm pretty disappointed by Mother Jones posting about this kid's Twitter thread with some stupid analysis.:

"Here's a sampling of odd, mundane, and chilling tweets from the account from the past year, including one in which the user laments, "The value of human life ain't shit nowadays."


WTF? What a bunch of "so..." Also includes comments about "much trash talk about women" which seems like code for "extreme Islam" except it's just nonsense like "guys who allow women to control them and make decisions for them are pathetic #growapair"

Expected better from Mother Jones.
posted by sweetkid at 11:14 AM on April 21, 2013


This is a career-making case for someone and at the highest levels of criminal defense private bar there will be reluctance to go storming in trying to represent this defendant without being approached first.

I completely agree with the first part of this sentence, and disagree with the second part of this sentence, precisely because what this case is worth in name recognition alone will be worth it over the long run.

Having the full force of the Federal Government as well as the Commonwealth of Massachusetts coming down on an individual is a daunting prospect for any defendant, especially one with limited resources. There isn't going to be a single defense attorney, he's going to need a team.
posted by ambrosia at 11:15 AM on April 21, 2013


Yes, there are ethical restrictions, but this isn't a typical "ambulance chasing" scenario that the MPRE rules you reference were intended to address (e.g., Rules 7.2 - Advertising and 7.3 - Direct Contact).

Yes, I agree it's not clear, which is why I said it may not bar the contact in this case.

Bear in mind that the federal defender's office is well equipped to give him a team of attorneys who are as good or better than any private team.
posted by Unified Theory at 11:25 AM on April 21, 2013


For anyone interested in Miranda analysis, or any thoughtful analysis of the other constitutional law issues that will arise during this prosecution, you might want to bookmark The Volokh Conspiracy.
Orin Kerr has a good Miranda analysis posted today that answers some of the questions posted in the thread above. I particularly like his analysis in #2 about the issue of how long that public safety analysis will continue to apply.
posted by Dr. Zira at 11:36 AM on April 21, 2013


Bear in mind that the federal defender's office is well equipped to give him a team of attorneys who are as good or better than any private team.

While PDs often get an undeserved bad rap, I wouldn't go so far as to say that they are well-equipped right now--the sequester has hit the Federal Public Defender's office in Massachusetts pretty hard (I actually thought about doing an FPP on some articles about this a few weeks back, but real life intervened).
posted by dsfan at 11:41 AM on April 21, 2013


list of NY Post parody headlines from mefi chat now up on the wiki. thank you marble for saving the log and creating the page.
posted by twist my arm at 11:41 AM on April 21, 2013 [14 favorites]


Miranda is just a warning that has to be given, it does not mean the person being questioned forfeits their right to remain silent because those 50 or so words were or were not spoken.

Miranda rights do not have to be given to a suspect. The government cannot use statements made under questioning if they haven't Mirandized the subject. There is no independent constitutional right to a Miranda warning. The suspect's right to not incriminate himself is absolute.

Also, Miranda is an exclusionary/evidentiary rule, so the cops could act on any information gained even if it ultimately isn't admissable (and this is where the "fruit of the poisonous tree" doctrine comes into play.

To be more clear: there is no fruit of the poisonous tree in Miranda. The government may make use of information in the statement to further the investigation. It may introduce information discovered that way into evidence. It may not use the statement itself.
posted by Ironmouth at 12:00 PM on April 21, 2013 [6 favorites]


Is there something I'm missing here, like is Boston 4 blocks by 5 blocks or something?

I think what you may be missing is the fact that authorities were dealing with a situation that had alot of unknown factors so locking down the city may seem too much, i look at the faces of those who cheered after he was caught and what other country cheers heavly armed police LEAVING the area.
posted by clavdivs at 12:02 PM on April 21, 2013


Those NYPost headlines were a good laugh, thanks.
posted by Miko at 12:09 PM on April 21, 2013


Is there something I'm missing here, like is Boston 4 blocks by 5 blocks or something?

It's pretty small.
posted by ChurchHatesTucker at 12:12 PM on April 21, 2013 [2 favorites]


Ironmouth: "To be more clear: there is no fruit of the poisonous tree in Miranda. The government may make use of information in the statement to further the investigation. It may introduce information discovered that way into evidence. It may not use the statement itself."

Don't they have to have an independent basis of discovery of the evidence apart from the unconstitutional interrogation itself to be able to admit the evidence?
posted by Dr. Zira at 12:17 PM on April 21, 2013


Bostonography (from ChurchHatesTuckers link just above) could be its own post. They've done some really great maps.
posted by bobobox at 12:26 PM on April 21, 2013 [5 favorites]




If I had to guess about how this will all play out, I would predict that Tsarnaev will plead guilty to federal charges that put him in prison for the rest of his life, under a deal that would spare him the death penalty, and that there will not be a state prosecution. I think the US Attorney's office will be amenable to this deal due to the arguable viability of a duress defense or similar argument based on the influence of the older brother. Tsarnaev's attorneys will advise him to take the deal in order to avoid the possibility of the death penalty, and he will take their advice. He will end up incarcerated at the federal SuperMax prison in Florence, Colorado.
posted by Unified Theory at 1:01 PM on April 21, 2013 [4 favorites]


Is there something I'm missing here, like is Boston 4 blocks by 5 blocks or something?

From your eloquence, I assume you are waxing hyperbole here.

Boston is pretty small though. When I lived in Somerville near Medford/Everett, I could bike to the farthest reaches of JP in probably 35 minutes. Driving would probably take me a hell of a lot longer.

As for why most would willingly accept a lock-down let me reframe it this way.


I live about 45 minutes outside of the city. I drove to work 12 miles on Friday- not towards the city. A huge percentage of people at work - and I mean huge - chose to work from home on Friday to be closer to the people they loved. They weren't in an affected zone - most consider living in the city and commuting outward as kind of silly (generally that means you pay more for less home, and make less pay - double whammy). It was a ghost town. Did people legitimately think the last remaining bomber would somehow evade police, jump in a car, drive out to the 495 loop, get off on the right road, pull off to the appropriate office park, burst through the front door, and blaze through a couple hundred people in the MetroWest? No.

But they did stay home for a shared reason - it was all we could do. I locked my door when I left, my wife dead-bolted herself inside with the kids. Would we, 45 minutes outside of Boston, really want to be the first house that the Bombers found with an unlocked door, where he could barge in, and take us hostage or something else? No.

It isn't rational - its a duck and cover response. It is a token. It is an offering. It is a guilty prayer that everything will be all right. It is a piece of solidarity for those who do have it worse, who may have the bad guy right outside their door. It is an effort to do what ever responsible action we were capable of. It was a collective desire for the bad guy to actually get caught just this once.

I even locked my car - something I rarely do - because hey - I don't want my car to be the one on the 5:30 or 6:00 news heading down the highway with the bad guy riding in it. In reality, there were a couple hundred thousand cars between here and there, most of which were sitting idle since everyone was in lock down.

I guess what I'm saying is this: We will gladly accept one day of staying home if you stop the bad guys. If tomorrow there's another bad guy who maims and kills kids, I bet Massachusetts would gladly do it again. If the bad guy just holds up a 7-11, I bet we'd be far less interested in doing so. I don't think the Governor will ask us to do so.
posted by Nanukthedog at 1:05 PM on April 21, 2013 [12 favorites]


I don't fault redditors for doing some amateur sleuthing. However, reddit, the news media, and others falsely identifying people by name as suspects led to people getting death threats and harassment. According to WaPo, concern for these people's safety and worries about clusterfuck that could happen if reddit et alii IDed the suspects before they arrested them pushed the FBI to release pictures of the two guys before they wanted to ‒ apparently they were still hoping to identify the guys and arrest them without tipping them off. Overzealous vigilantes on reddit, twitter and in the media made this impossible.

There's a difference between spotting possibly suspicious people in publicly available photos and notifying the police if you could identify any of them ‒ which is at least harmless, and potentially helpful ‒ and publicly doxing probably innocent people.

I think people have pretty clear claims of libel and slander here, with very clear personal consequences, and there are possible charges of obstruction of justice and interfering with an investigation. I hope people who did this face the legal consequences of their actions, and are forced confront the harm they did to their victims and pay for it to the extent that they can through damage claims.
posted by nangar at 1:05 PM on April 21, 2013 [1 favorite]


Have we had the Taiwanese news animation about the news media fail yet? If someone posted it, I missed it. I thought it was grimly funny.
posted by Countess Elena at 1:08 PM on April 21, 2013 [4 favorites]


This week's This American Life (493: The Picture Show) opens with a short conversation with one of the redditors who moderated the discussion there.
posted by ChurchHatesTucker at 1:09 PM on April 21, 2013 [1 favorite]




However, reddit, the new media, and others falsely identifying people by name as suspects led to people getting death threats and harassment.

Here in RI, the possibility that Sunil Tripathi was a suspect was pushed by some news outlets. The family is having a hard enough time of things, with their son missing for over a month, without people flocking to the Facebook page dedicated to finding him (since deactivated) to scream that he's a terrorist.

And what's the point? Even if one of those innocent people targeted were involved, what's the point of this vigilantism? That's a serious question - what's the upside? Internet bragging rights?
posted by Ruki at 1:16 PM on April 21, 2013 [1 favorite]


what happens with homeowners' property damage when a shootout/raid/search occurs? There's the boat, obviously, but there were shots fired into residents' walls during the initial shootout on Thursday. Does insurance pay for that?

One Fund Boston has raised over $10M so far and counting. While I presume that the bulk of this will go to the folks who were injured in the attack (the fund is why I'm not really concerned that Jeff Bauman will have issues paying for his care and prosthetics, for example, even though there is also independent fundraising ($300,000 and counting) for him) I'm fairly certain that some money would go to homeowners, if they wanted to apply.
posted by anastasiav at 1:17 PM on April 21, 2013


Rep. Peter King: Stop Being Politically Correct, Let's Focus on Muslim Communities

............and so it starts in earnest.

King was doing so well there for a while too....like actually acting as a legislator should after events like Sandy?


I guess I should not be surprised though.
posted by lampshade at 1:19 PM on April 21, 2013


Rep. Peter King: Stop Being Politically Correct, Let's Focus on Muslim Communities

When I hear this coming from a man who once 'pledged support to "those brave men and women who this very moment are carrying forth the struggle against British imperialism in the streets of Belfast and Derry"'', this Northern Irish person says, fuck you, Peter King, fuck you.
posted by knapah at 1:22 PM on April 21, 2013 [12 favorites]


Yeah, King is the worst. He has such a history of supporting terrorism. I guess it's okay if you catholic, but not if you are Muslim.
posted by Area Man at 1:26 PM on April 21, 2013




Yeah, King is the worst. He has such a history of supporting terrorism. I guess it's okay if you catholic, but not if you are Muslim.


I guess we can begin the countdown clock for another Michele Bachmann quote now as well.
posted by lampshade at 1:30 PM on April 21, 2013


Mayor Menino's office announces a rough outline for a plan to reopen the Copley Square/Boylston Street crime scene area.

From the release: "As we respect the need for people to continue to express their support for the victims and our city we will place large message boards in the vicinity of the area to allow people to record their thoughts and reflections."
posted by rollbiz at 1:32 PM on April 21, 2013


Related Op-Ed from today's (actually yesterday's) NYT

EDITORIAL: The Right to Remain Silent

On another note, it was just announced on The Tube of Boobness, that the charges will not be announced today.
posted by lampshade at 1:37 PM on April 21, 2013 [1 favorite]


I think the biggest issue with social media fingering the wrong people is the cross-pollination effect - we have solid moderation here, and the Redditt thread seems to have been pretty thoroughly watched too, but there are huge swathes of the Internet where there is no oversight at all and no room to correct mistakes once they're out. Take a bad theory from Redditt, photo from a forum, slap it on Facebook, and away it goes. It takes three different set of administrators to kill that rumour, and with FB especially a distant or absent mod team is going to be next to useless.

Let's not even get started on news site comment threads. Festering wastelands all, really.
posted by Jilder at 1:41 PM on April 21, 2013 [1 favorite]


Don't they have to have an independent basis of discovery of the evidence apart from the unconstitutional interrogation itself to be able to admit the evidence?

Not unless they coerce the statement. See Oregon v. Elstad, 470 U.S. 298 (1985). Just failing to follow procedure is not enough. They have to overwhelm the will of the suspect so it is not a consensual statement.
posted by Ironmouth at 1:54 PM on April 21, 2013


Miko: Just as a point of order, the public transport services (and pretty much everything else) were not shut down by police order as the police don't have authority to do that. This was a series of independent decisions by the managers of those agencies/facilities, who took into account the request by police, the likely low utilization rate anyway that day due to general anxiety, and their own unwillingness to risk having their own facilities end up somehow impacted by/involved in further attacks with further possible casualties. These were logical, independent decisions, not the imposition of martial law. So let's be clear about that.

While there's obviously yet to be a full official investigation and review, of the anatomy that led to the decision for a "full lockdown," the WaPo, New Yorker and Salon articles are shedding some much needed light and it can be said at this point that it wasn't based on "independent" or even "logical" decisions.

The most damning point being that immediately after the Boston Marathon bombing there was no lockdown on any part of Boston, but the combination of hysteria the press and cable news built up, and the governmental need to appear fully engaged, tipped the scales towards over-reach.

These were not individual and logical decisions. They were based on politically expedient over-reaction on the Federal (DA Carmen Ortiz, FBI) State (Deval) and City (Mayors office, the BPD) officials any of which entities it seems now (post-911) have huge and sweeping powers to not only request a "lockdown" or impose martial law, if necessary (if this was more than two brothers, does anyone think, State and Federal agencies wouldn't have done exactly that??).

I can see Watertown having such a request, (key word there is request) made, but to shut down, Boston airspace, harbor, train stations, airport??

I think, and apologies to anyone who is law enforcement people out there, once Collier the MIT cop was killed this became extremely personal for the BPD and the FBI, and a matter of getting their man and meting out revenge. It seems the various pols and govt. agencies who are politically sensitive simply bent to the demand from a vastly more powerful law enforcement firmament now in place, with sweeping powers on all levels to suspend rights and civil liberties if they so feel the need.

And this is why we have laws and procedures and these things need be codified properly and not be blank checks law enforcement can write for themselves vis a vis, civil liberties of any sort.

Even after he was caught, DA Ortiz had the absolute chutzpah and arrogance to be cagey regarding when or how Dzhokhar, an American citizen even, would be read his Miranda Rights, and even before any examination of the facts in the matter mention that she would be seeking the death penalty.

I'm certainly glad Boston came together for this, and is now celebrating, and breathing a sigh of relief and all that, ya'll deserve it, but please keep in the back of your minds these issues are profound and are going to effect what kind of country we're going to live in going forward.
posted by Skygazer at 1:56 PM on April 21, 2013 [1 favorite]


DA Ortiz

She's not an elected DA. She's the US Attorney, appointed by Obama. Since she's appointed, her actions are more troubling. My guess is she plans to run for statewide office at some point.
posted by stopgap at 2:02 PM on April 21, 2013 [2 favorites]


I can see Watertown having such a request, (key word there is request) made, but to shut down, Boston airspace, harbor, train stations, airport??

By all means, question the decision, but shutting down all transportation methods isn't exactly unreasonable when a known bomber is on the run in a city.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 2:03 PM on April 21, 2013 [2 favorites]


My guess is she plans to run for statewide office at some point.

Yeah, there was a lot of talk after Swartz took his life that the reason she'd been so relentless and aggressive was for exactly that very reason.
posted by Skygazer at 2:05 PM on April 21, 2013


The most damning being that immediately after the Boston bombing and for a few days there was no need to lockdown any part of the city of Boston, but the combination of hysteria the press built up and the governmental need to appear fully engaged tipped the scales.

Are you seriously claiming that nothing changed early Friday morning that might have warranted a different approach compared to the prior few days? Nothing like, say, police being engaged in a firefight that involved suspects hurling improvised explosives in the streets?
posted by tocts at 2:09 PM on April 21, 2013 [16 favorites]


By all means, question the decision, but shutting down all transportation methods isn't exactly unreasonable when a known bomber is on the run in a city.

It is when you have an exact description of the suspect, and police and swat can be assigned to Public Transportation, train stations (South and BAck Bay stations could've easily been secured) , Bus stations and airports.

The greater question here is that, as has been mentioned many times now by even experts in security from Israel (cf: the Salon piece), you don't allow it these actions to stop a people from moving on with their lives or threatening a whole way of life.
posted by Skygazer at 2:09 PM on April 21, 2013


Glad we're finally circling back to this conversation.
posted by (Arsenio) Hall and (Warren) Oates at 2:11 PM on April 21, 2013 [8 favorites]


Are you seriously claiming that nothing changed early Friday morning that might have warranted a different approach compared to the prior few days? Nothing like, say, police being engaged in a firefight that involved suspects hurling improvised explosives in the streets?

Much HAD changed, and for the better in terms of getting to the bottom of things actually. The suspects were identified. One was dead, the other was hurt, disoriented and on the run. There was no proof they were involved with any other groups and throwing pressure cookers doesn't exactly suggest they had access to the most effective easily concealed bombs.

Are you saying all the actions taken by the officials and agencies in this situation were reasonable and logical and restrained?
posted by Skygazer at 2:13 PM on April 21, 2013


Rep. Peter King: Stop Being Politically Correct, Let's Focus on Muslim Communities

A little earlier MSNBC's Craig Melvin played a clip of Peter King and then said, "Well...that train always leaves on time, doesn't it?"
posted by Room 641-A at 2:17 PM on April 21, 2013 [5 favorites]


Skygazer: "Even after he was caught, DA Ortiz had the absolute chutzpah and arrogance to be cagey regarding when or how Dzhokhar, an American citizen even, would be read his Miranda Rights, and even before any examination of the facts in the matter mention that she would be seeking the death penalty."

Just out of curiosity, do you have a link to a statement in which she mentioned she'd be seeking the death penalty? All I've heard her mention was the Miranda issue, and according to this article, after they make their charging decisions, they're going to run it up the DOJ and Eric Holder is going to sign off on the decision first.

I know there are senators running their mouths off about it, but as a prosecutor, she's got to be careful about what she says for a number of reasons and it would surprise me if she went that far before they've even finalized their charging decisions.

Don't get me wrong, I'm no fan of hers and I don't like that she's making statements in front of cameras at all at this point, but in all fairness, she shouldn't be falsely attributed with statements she hasn't made.
posted by Dr. Zira at 2:18 PM on April 21, 2013 [2 favorites]


The decision to shut down the MBTA was made by the MBTA, not the governor, and was announced before the shelter in place order. The MBTA has also been shut down for Hurricane Sandy and the February blizzard this year. To claim city overreach on that particular decision is inaccurate.

Since the T had (independently) shut down anyway, staying home for a lot for people was inevitable as they simply couldn't get to work. Again, this is not at all unheard of for Boston, though it's not a regular occurrence. It's what comes of living in a place frequented by shitty weather.

Maybe some of the other decisions were overreach, I'm not an expert, but that's not one of them.

(Insert local joke here of "The T is shut down? How can you tell?")
posted by sonika at 2:20 PM on April 21, 2013 [6 favorites]


Yeah, I recall Ortiz answering a question during the post-capture presser in which a reporter asked if she would be pursing the death penalty and she shrugged it off as too early to even discuss. I don't know of any subsequent comment by her on the subject, link 'em if you got 'em.
posted by cortex at 2:20 PM on April 21, 2013 [2 favorites]


Or perhaps they just didn't give a shit, knew they'd probably eventually get caught and wanted to go out in a blaze of glory?

This is what I thought initially (on Thursday, when I stayed up all night participating in that mindbending rollercoaster of a thread*). I'm not sure an explanation exists that puts all their actions into a rational sequence; certainly I haven't read one yet.

If they were seriously hoping to escape, it would make no sense to paint a target on themselves by shooting a cop, nor to waste time at a convenience store picking up snacks.

OTOH if they had anticipated being identified eventually and then going out in a "blaze of glory," then presumably their response to their photos being released would not have been panic, but more like "game on." However, this doesn't fit with their driving around trying to withdraw cash (??).

*As others have, I wanted to say thanks to everybody, I really appreciated that discussion.
posted by torticat at 2:21 PM on April 21, 2013


Much HAD changed, and for the better actually. The suspects were identified.

Which appears to have shifted them from "hide" mode into "cop murder" mode. That's not better.

One was dead, the other was hurt, disoriented and on the run.

No one could be certain that the younger one was either of those first two things, and "on the run" was kind of the point of the lockdown.

There was no proof they were involved with any other groups and throwing pressure cookers doesn't exactly suggest they had access to the most effective easily concealed bombs.

I'm okay with the police not taking too many chances on people getting less dangerous as they get more cornered.
posted by Etrigan at 2:21 PM on April 21, 2013


It is when you have an exact description of the suspect, and police and swat can be assigned to Public Transportation, train stations (South and BAck Bay stations could've easily been secured) , Bus stations and airports.

You have what feels like an unreasonable belief in the ability of police to translate a description of a suspect into an arrest without any risk whatsoever to the public. You also appear to be making arguments from hindsight that the police and the MBTA (who actually made the decision, remember) could not possibly have had the benefit of at the time. They did not know the extent to which Dzhokhar was injured, nor the extent to which he might have access to more bombs.

If you want to argue that it was debatable, and you wouldn't have gone that way, have at it. What you seem to be arguing, though, is that the police and the MBTA somehow just decided on a whim Friday morning that they wanted to shut down the city, and that's frankly ridiculous.
posted by tocts at 2:23 PM on April 21, 2013 [7 favorites]


Just out of curiosity, do you have a link to a statement in which she mentioned she'd be seeking the death penalty?

Yeah, that was a mistake. That joined multi-agency press conference given after Dzharhov was captured, was confusing, you're right, she only mentioned the death penalty to say that that had to be reviewed by the DOJ.
posted by Skygazer at 2:25 PM on April 21, 2013


Mod note: Folks, this needs to not get personal.
posted by restless_nomad (staff) at 2:31 PM on April 21, 2013 [1 favorite]


Also, Skygazer, are you at all familiar with the areas you're talking about? Back Bay station borders both Copley Sq (already a crime scene) and a residential neighborhood. It's hardly an area you can really lock down with a few extra cops. This is, in fact, a problem in and if itself as it has been the site of assaults in the last few years. South Station is an even bigger problem being that it serves bus, train, and MBTA service and it is incredibly easy to slip from one to another.

Your lack of even mentioning North Station - another transit hub with the distinction of existing actually inside the TD Garden - also belies your lack of knowledge of the area. Your theories are simply implausible and you're very clearly talking about things you know nothing about.
posted by sonika at 2:38 PM on April 21, 2013 [9 favorites]


Well, MeFi has no ignore button, so I'm going to waltz on out of here. This is tiresome.
posted by dhartung at 2:38 PM on April 21, 2013 [10 favorites]


Nor does this person understand the difference between District Attorney and US Attorney, so discounting the rest of their holding forth is surely warranted.
posted by Unified Theory at 2:43 PM on April 21, 2013 [1 favorite]


Your theories are simply implausible and you're very clearly talking about things you know nothing about.

Incredible how much you're capable of deeming "implausible" simply based on the idea that I didn't mention North station. When that wasn't even the main point I was making. Which is that there could've been a much more nuanced and restrained response. And in reality all the stations could've been closed except for South station or perhaps Back Bay, so that more attention could've been placed upon one manageable area.
posted by Skygazer at 2:53 PM on April 21, 2013


While there's obviously yet to be a full official investigation and review, of the anatomy that led to the decision for a "full lockdown," the WaPo, New Yorker and Salon articles are shedding some much needed light and it can be said at this point that it wasn't based on "independent" or even "logical" decisions.

I've read everything in the Times and the Globe today and I wonder if you can provide some concrete citations for the assertions you're making. Quotations, and where you found them. Thanks.

that there could've been a much more nuanced and restrained response

OK. Could you please describe what that would look like?
posted by Miko at 2:54 PM on April 21, 2013 [1 favorite]


This is interesting to me, a little window into the type of people we are dealing with here:

Dzhokhar and his buddies enjoyed tooling around Boston in a BMW with a novelty license plate emblazoned "Terrorista #1."

Terrorist car bling. Classy.
posted by Unified Theory at 2:56 PM on April 21, 2013 [1 favorite]


Are you saying all the actions taken by the officials and agencies in this situation were reasonable and logical and restrained?

Pretty much, yeah, people are saying that. Specifically, a couple people FROM BOSTON even said as much. They might not have used the exact words you're seeking but I think they were pretty clear that they felt law enforcement did what was necessary and a damn fine job considering what they were dealing with.

I don't know why it is you're so intent on convincing people that this was a situation in which LE overstepped and shat all over everyone's civil liberties. If you were seeking and would like to see in the future a "much more restrained response" to a couple'a dudes throwing out fucking bombs in residential neighborhoods, I'm all for hearing exactly what you think that looks like...
posted by youandiandaflame at 2:56 PM on April 21, 2013 [9 favorites]


Does anyone have a source for the idea that the government is actually using the public safety exemption? I keep seeing discussion of it but the only for attribution quote I've been able to find is US Attorney Ortiz at the press conference and it's not clear to me that she said that it's being used.

At the press conference the question was "Reports tonight are that there was no Miranda warning given, that they were claiming a public safety exemption, can we get an explanation for that?"

Her answer was: "There is a public safety exemption in cases of national security and potential charges involving acts of terrorism and so the government has that opportunity right now though I believe that the suspect has been take to a hospital so we'll start with there."

That doesn't seem clear cut to me and with the medical issues I assume he wasn't questioned immediately. It seems possible that they just hadn't made a positive decision at that point. Has someone confirmed the public safety exemption after that?
posted by macfly at 3:03 PM on April 21, 2013


Incredible how much you're capable of deeming "implausible" simply based on the idea that I didn't mention North station. When that wasn't even the main point I was making. Which is that there could've been a much more nuanced and restrained response.

The argument you have thus far made is that the police and the MBTA, knowing that a person was on the loose in the area who had already bombed a major public gathering and had just hours prior been throwing bombs at the police, should have assumed that if they just posted police officers with a photo of that person at all MBTA stations, everything would be fine, and that there would not be any risk whatsoever.

This is pretty much functionally identical to arguing that the police should just shoot guns out of the hands of criminals.
posted by tocts at 3:06 PM on April 21, 2013 [6 favorites]




Does anyone have a source for the idea that the government is actually using the public safety exemption?

DOJ Official: No Miranda Rights For Boston Bombing Suspect Yet
A DOJ official explains why Boston Marathon bombing suspect Dzokhar Tsarnaev has not been read his Miranda rights.

"The suspect is en route to the hospital for immediate treatment," the official tells TPM's Sahil Kapur. "But we plan to invoke the public safety exception to Miranda in order to question the suspect extensively about other potential explosive devices or accomplices and to gain critical intelligence."
posted by tonycpsu at 3:07 PM on April 21, 2013 [1 favorite]


Ironmouth: "Not unless they coerce the statement. See Oregon v. Elstad, 470 U.S. 298 (1985). Just failing to follow procedure is not enough. They have to overwhelm the will of the suspect so it is not a consensual statement."

But in that case there were two confessions: One at Elstad's home before he was Mirandized and there was a question of whether or not he was actually "in custody" (which was ultimately suppressed) and the second (which was not suppressed) at the police station after he'd been taken into custody and Mirandized so they could seek the "reconfession" to make it admissible. So the issue there was whether the second statement was rendered invalid by their failure to Mirandize him before the first statement, and the court said it was not rendered invalid, so that cops can "cure" a potential Miranda violation, or at least insure themselves if there's a question of whether or not the interrogation was custodial or not. Obviously the issue of whether or not he's in custody isn't going to be an issue here.

The reason I'm wondering is because if they try to rely on the public safety exception, get some information or evidence that they wouldn't otherwise find, which could be used to get another charge on him, then Mirandize him, after which he stops talking, what happens to the evidence if the court rules that they've exceeded the scope of the public safety exception? I'm not thinking so much about an "I did it" type confession, but other evidence like suppliers, other conspirators, location of other supplies. With the other suspect dead, I would think they're going to need him to fill in a lot of missing pieces about his brother's actions which could be used against him at his own trial. The public safety exception is only going to get them so far, and without much caselaw to hang expanded use, there's a lot riding on it if they press too far and get it wrong.
posted by Dr. Zira at 3:08 PM on April 21, 2013


When that wasn't even the main point I was making. Which is that there could've been a much more nuanced and restrained response. And in reality all the stations could've been closed except for South station or perhaps Back Bay, so that more attention could've been placed upon one manageable area.

Which area is that exactly? Watertown? Oh please enlighten me as to which T stations service this area because I'm just dying to hear what a controlled shut down would look like. (Hint: The T proper doesn't go through Watertown, the area is serviced by bus.)

Also, first you say they just needed more cops, now you're saying the two stations MOST LIKELY (I'd put North Station ahead of Back Bay but that's just, oh, knowing the transit system talking) to suffer an attack are the ONLY two that should have remained open? And to go... where, exactly? That only leaves the Southern branch of the commuter rail running (so you can get in from, say, Worcester but not Lowell or Newburyport) you can't even get from one station to the other on rapid transit! They're on completely different lines! But of course, you know better than I do about how Boston's infrastructure is set up.

You are, quite simply, out of your element.
posted by sonika at 3:09 PM on April 21, 2013 [13 favorites]


I'm going to frame Boston's shutdown a different way.

Flight 93. Some of the last words on that released sky phone conversation were "Alright, it's go time."

Flash forward to Friday morning. The last known terrorist is loose in the city after killing a cop and wounding another. He's just run over his brother to successfully avoid the police and escape. Every single man and woman in this area are either asleep or glued to the events unfolding. If you tell me we can help capture this bad guy by locking our doors and not riding on the T - hell yes - you'd better believe folks wanted to stay home. And just in case this is someone's last night alive - I bet they'd rather be with their family, and not standing on a subway platform (or a bus stop in Watertown - nothing goes to Watertown besides busses).

When the shit goes down let the police do their job, and let us help the police.

Apologies for the profanity. I seriously don't understand why this is such a hard concept.
posted by Nanukthedog at 3:11 PM on April 21, 2013 [6 favorites]


It feels like arguing against mandatory evacuations during hurricanes or wild fires.

One thing I am curious about is that there are currently reports saying that the surviving suspect was shot in the throat and may never be able to speak. I thought he was talking to them police from inside the boat?
posted by feloniousmonk at 3:18 PM on April 21, 2013


Surveillance video from the Boston Marathon attack shows one suspect dropping his backpack and calmly walking away from it before the bomb inside it exploded, Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick said Sunday.

This dropping of the backpack, along with the story from Bauman of the bomber looking into his eyes as he did so, strikes me as so very bizarre. "Hey, I'm just going to leave this big bag of mine here & go for a walk somewhere..."

I could understand if he walked up with the bag & put it on the ground, then stood around watching the race for a while, until there had been some churn in the crowd and nobody knew anymore whose bag it was, then he walked away.

Perhaps it did happen as per my imagined scenario, not the drop-and-go model, but the way I keep hearing it reported makes it sound as if it's perfectly normal to go about leaving your personal possessions in the care of crowds of others in Boston. Surely, it can't be that trusting a town? There are still junkies & petty thieves just like anywhere else, right? You keep your belongings close to you?
posted by UbuRoivas at 3:18 PM on April 21, 2013 [1 favorite]


Nanuk: Would you feel the same if the shutdown were to last several days, a week, or more? That didn't happen but I'm just curious how far most people's 'allegiance' would go.
posted by artdrectr at 3:19 PM on April 21, 2013


I at least think the shelter in place order was the right length, since it was withdrawn at 6 pm. If it had extended into Saturday, I would have had a problem with it.
posted by Elementary Penguin at 3:28 PM on April 21, 2013


Mod note: Skygazer, once again, you need to cool it.
posted by restless_nomad (staff) at 3:28 PM on April 21, 2013 [7 favorites]


You are, quite simply, out of your element.

I was talking only about Amtrak.


Surely trying to confuse me about the MBTA proves you know what your talking about in regards to massive agency over-reach and suspension of civil liberties at a moments notice because the Jackasses on CNN and FOX and the NYPOST are out of their minds with sensationalism and distortions.
posted by Skygazer at 3:28 PM on April 21, 2013


Deval Patrick's office did announce the shutdown, and Patrick had promoted the idea, but very importantly, this was not done by fiat.

Friday, April 19, 4:30 AM, Boston Police Commissioner Ed Davis:
"We're trying to get information out the the people here that they should stay in their homes and not open their doors unless police officers are there. There's a 20 block perimeter around the location...We are concerned about securing that area and making sure that individual is taken into custody. We believe this to be a terrorist. We believe this to be a man who's come here to kill people. We need to get him into custody."
"Wee hours" of Friday morning:
"In the wee hours of Friday morning, as police hunted for the second suspect in the Boston Marathon bombings, Richard A. Davey, secretary of transportation, joined a conference call with Governor Deval Patrick and law enforcement officials. With a potentially armed suspect on the loose, an unprecedented decision was made: The region’s entire public transportation system was shuttered....The T has shut down in the past because of blizzards, hurricanes, fires, and floods. Several times, decades ago, labor strikes and a financial crisis also brought about one-day closures...But, said Bradley H. Clarke, a transit historian, Friday was the only time the transit authority had chosen to institute an intentional, across-the-board shuttering of every sector of the T when the system was otherwise able to function.

“I would call this shutdown an unprecedented one,” Clarke said. “To shut down the whole system — buses, rapid transit lines, light rail lines, ferries — it’s very rare.”

Beverly A. Scott, general manager of the T, defended the decision to close all public transportation, saying officials could not take the chance of hampering law enforcement’s efforts apprehend to Tsarnaev.
Friday, April 19, 5:55 AM, MA Emergency Management Agency Director Kurt Schwartz:
"We are hoping that as we proceed through the next number of hours we will be able to turn back on portions of the system but the system has been shut down now as a safety measure. People that are at subway stations or at bus stops, we are asking them to go home. We do not want people congregating and waiting for the system to come back on....We also want to speak to the residents and the public within the town of Watertown and the cities and towns that are abutting Watertown. And to be specific, we are asking residents of Watertown, Newton, Waltham, Belmont, Cambridge, and the Allston-Brighton neighborhood of Boston. To those people, we are asking you to stay indoors, to stay in your homes for the time being. We're asking businesses in those areas to please cooperate and not open today until we can provide further guidance and information."
Watertown Police Chief Ed Deveau: "We need your help now. We're asking everybody to shelter in place. No vehicle traffic is going to be allowed to travel in and out of Watertown. No business is going to be allowed to be reopened. The Watertown community has always stood strong and we need them to do that today."
Afternoon press briefing with Governor Patrick:
"We want to thank the members of the public who have honored our request to stay indoors....We know what an inconvenience it is in Watertown and Cambridge in particular...it's been enormously important and helpful for many, many in law enforcement who are trying to do their jobs...it is important that folks remain indoors and not open the door, keep the doors locked and not open the door unless there is a uniformed, identified law enforcement officer out there requesting to come inside."
Friday evening, 6PM, Gov. Patrick:
"The stay indoor request is lifted....that request is lifted but remain vigilant."
These processes and this language seem so clear to me. This is not what martial law looks like or sounds like. I can't reconcile a reading that this was some sort of police-state takeover of Boston with...the things that actually happened and the decisions that were actually made.
posted by Miko at 3:30 PM on April 21, 2013 [9 favorites]


This is interesting to me, a little window into the type of people we are dealing with here:

Dzhokhar and his buddies enjoyed tooling around Boston in a BMW with a novelty license plate emblazoned "Terrorista #1."

Terrorist car bling. Classy.
posted by Unified Theory at 2:56 PM on April 21 [+] [!]


1) That popped up shortly after they identified him (can't remember where -- probably Twitter), 2) your link is from the Daily Mail, 3) it looks heavily Photoshopped, and 4) too many people will be salivating for that to be part of the story for it to be given any credence at this point.
posted by mudpuppie at 3:31 PM on April 21, 2013


And yet, you seem unable to see anything but your own very myopic experience of this.

Seriously, you seem to have a very different idea to what the lockdown entailed, and seem pretty keen on ignoring what the multiple mefites who were in the zone have been trying to tell you, with varying degrees of politeness, for the last two days.

I'm in Australia dude and even I can see the difference between your notion of what happened and the experiences of everyone on the ground - not just sonika but the other people who have been good enough to share their first hand experiences here.

They've been providing very useful and informative commentary for many of us outside the States, so I'd say they have been far from myopic.

Bostonians, I thank you for the perspective you've been providing us out of state and international readers. It's been invaluable to my personal understanding of the situation.
posted by Jilder at 3:32 PM on April 21, 2013 [20 favorites]


Dzhokhar and his buddies enjoyed tooling around Boston in a BMW with a novelty license plate emblazoned "Terrorista #1."

Unified Theory, that story from the Daily Mail has been seriously questioned here. Do you remember hearing "Con los terroristas!" in any other context over the past few months?

I don't think the plate was a blatant "Crunchy terrorists inside!" message. More likely, it just means that some kids are stuck with the reminder of a rapidly cooling meme.
posted by maudlin at 3:32 PM on April 21, 2013 [1 favorite]


I was talking only about Amtrak.

You at no point said that and were referencing the MBTA. You are now trying to make me look like I can't follow you, when you absolutely never referenced Amtrak at all. Please try to disagree with me honestly rather than changing the goalposts with every comment.
posted by sonika at 3:33 PM on April 21, 2013 [5 favorites]


How were all civil liberties suspended? I haven't seen anything suggesting that was the case.
posted by Area Man at 3:35 PM on April 21, 2013 [1 favorite]


I'm sorry if I did not make that clearer. I use Amtrak to get into Boston, and I know Back Bay and South Station only. Period. I won't pretend to have any viable knowledge of the MBTA. And I wasn't.
posted by Skygazer at 3:36 PM on April 21, 2013


Nanuk: Would you feel the same if the shutdown were to last several days, a week, or more? That didn't happen but I'm just curious how far most people's 'allegiance' would go.

Wasn't the shutdown already lifted before they captured him? I thought that was one of the announcements of the press conference. They basically admitted that they had lost him and were hoping that lifting the restrictions would help flush him out, which it did.

To be honest, I think the only thing they could have done better would have been to announce their target area. I'm assuming the guy that owned the boat wasn't listening on the scanner channels and hearing that he was only a couple blocks from where the police were searching house to house. If I had known my house was that close, you can bet I'd be checking out my backyard right away.
posted by stopgap at 3:38 PM on April 21, 2013


Thanks ChurchHatesTuckerand tonycpsu for the info but the first references the same press conference I talked about and the second quotes an unnamed DOJ official (who appears to have been quoted right after the capture since they reference 'en route to the hospital'. I still haven't seen and can't find anything 'official' on the subject. But thanks again for the links.
posted by macfly at 3:39 PM on April 21, 2013


I don't have a source, but I know that they did announce the target area for sure. The guy with the boat certainly wouldn't have had reason to think Tsarnaev was, y'know, in his boat. Even had he been in the area, "I wonder if this dude is in my boat" doesn't strike me as something that would necessarily be on anyone's radar. I am surprised he didn't notice the tarp flapping, it was a breezy day, but presumably his attention was elsewhere.
posted by sonika at 3:42 PM on April 21, 2013


I know they said it was East Watertown, Dexter, Laurel, and School streets. I don't know Watertown so I don't know enough to tell if that's the whole perimeter. However, since they actually did have the perimeter surrounded physically by police, it would have been pretty easy to tell if you were within or outside of it.
posted by Miko at 3:48 PM on April 21, 2013


The one thing I can say with absolute certainty re: terrorista is that Jahar once retweeted a friend who mentioned they were hanging out and included terrorista (iirc) as a hashtag in the tweet.
posted by drezdn at 3:48 PM on April 21, 2013


I know that they did announce the target area for sure

I can't find it now, but I know there was a map on the Globe website (we looked at it several times) and I believe they also broadcast that same map on WBZ.
posted by anastasiav at 3:50 PM on April 21, 2013


Dzhokhar and his buddies enjoyed tooling around Boston in a BMW with a novelty license plate emblazoned "Terrorista #1."

In MA you are not allowed to have such novelty plates; you have to have official registry plates front and back. You're not even allowed to have novelty frames around official plates. At inspection a couple of years ago they made me remove my "I need my space" NASA frame.
posted by Camofrog at 3:52 PM on April 21, 2013


ABC is reporting that Tsarnaev is awake and responding to questions in writing.
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 3:53 PM on April 21, 2013 [1 favorite]


I can't find it now, but I know there was a map on the Globe website (we looked at it several times)

Those maps might have been taken down after police asked that their positions not be broadcast.

Separately, TPM has a recap of events for the past week.
posted by ChurchHatesTucker at 3:53 PM on April 21, 2013


Sorry if I missed that they announced the area. I saw BPD statements on Twitter not to share operational information and addresses from the scanners. (As an aside, how ballsy was the guy who owned the boat to look inside it before calling police? The cut tarp and blood seems like enough to warrant a call on its own.)
posted by stopgap at 3:53 PM on April 21, 2013 [3 favorites]


The one thing I can say with absolute certainty ... (iirc)

Trying to figure out if this is a joke.
posted by torticat at 3:55 PM on April 21, 2013


One of the things that I find reassuring re: the shelter-in-place order is that they lifted it at about the 12 hour mark. That says to me that the civil authorities know even in extraordinary circumstances, that kind of restriction needs to be limited and they don't have a blank check. (Even if the decision was partly to get him to reveal himself, I still think it had to be motivated in large part by a sense of "this kind of imposition on the public can't go on much longer while retaining full public support")
posted by LobsterMitten at 3:55 PM on April 21, 2013 [4 favorites]


...in regards to massive agency over-reach and suspension of civil liberties at a moments notice because the Jackasses on CNN and FOX and the NYPOST are out of their minds with sensationalism and distortions.

My bolding. To say that this massive agency over-reach you allege happened because the NYPost and CNN are asshats is just patently false. I'm of the opinion is had shit to do with whatever CNN was doing and everything to do with dudes throwing bombs and murdering. Perhaps this is the disconnect people are having with what you're trying to force them to believe or understand. Please correct me if I'm misreading (seriously, I'm not being a sarcastic ass, please do) but what I get from your statement is "CNN sensationalized this to such a degree that people were happy to give up their civil liberties not because they were happy to assist in any way they could for 12 hours or so but because they're too stupid to see the government pissing on their rights".

You seem to think that the shelter in place occurred because cops were just lurking around and waiting for an opportunity to shit on the rights we have as citizens and we're all just too stupid to see that. I really hope I'm wrong (which wouldn't be the first or tenth time in this thread, I'm sure) so feel free to correct me.
posted by youandiandaflame at 3:56 PM on April 21, 2013 [2 favorites]


stopgap, I keep thinking that, as well. I wouldn't have had the nerve to go anywhere near the boat if I thought someone was in it.
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 3:56 PM on April 21, 2013 [3 favorites]


how ballsy was the guy who owned the boat to look inside it before calling police? The cut tarp and blood seems like enough to warrant a call on its own.

My thoughts exactly. Had the suspect not been in such depleted condition, lifting that flap could have been his last act. I would't have done it.

what I get from your statement is "CNN sensationalized this to such a degree that people were happy to give up their civil liberties not because they were happy to assist in any way they could for 12 hours or so but because they're too stupid to see the government pissing on their rights".

Yeah, and if that's the assertion being attempted, it doesn't make any sense - because Bostonians, maybe unlike the rest of the world, weren't really glued to CNN as CNN has the least local information, and local information is what people required. Remember that since Monday, well before the manhunt, Boston-area people have been saturated in communications, and of course we all were wondering whether the bombers were still around or had already escaped, we were to some degree braced for another local bombing, and so it's not like we needed the media to get us on hyper-alert. People were pretty tuned in already and, I think, pretty serious about doing their part to help with both the investigation and supporting the victims and learning their personal stories and the like So, people were getting their info from the Globe a lot, from WBUR a lot, from local TV broadcast news a lot, to some degree Patch, and particularly from the regular press conferences, not to mention word of mouth, much of that via Facebook. Even though I live 45 minutes on a good day from the impacted town, I got texts on my phone from the reverse-911 service and from National Grid (the power company). I wasn't even there at the time, I was traveling Wed through Saturday, but I was using Boston-based media, not networks, to get my information.

It was a quite a bit more direct an experience than getting ambiently hyped up by the national media. That might have happened to some people out there but it's not an apt descriptor of what happened in the Boston area.
posted by Miko at 4:05 PM on April 21, 2013


Video of the final moments of the stand off. Police did use a vehicle or robot to rock the boat.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 4:06 PM on April 21, 2013 [1 favorite]


Police did use a vehicle or robot to rock the boat.

I saw that machine in a photo and totally could not understand what it was. Thanks.

It seems to be ripping off the back part of the tarp too.
posted by Miko at 4:08 PM on April 21, 2013


60 minutes is on in the Eastern time zone and it's going over how authorities tracked the bombers and so on.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 4:09 PM on April 21, 2013 [1 favorite]


One of the things that I find reassuring re: the shelter-in-place order is that they lifted it at about the 12 hour mark. That says to me that the civil authorities know even in extraordinary circumstances, that kind of restriction needs to be limited and they don't have a blank check.

Yes, absolutely. One thing that bears mentioning in the face of the accusations of martial law is that LE absolutely did *not* want to lift the shelter in place order just yet, but they were overruled. There was definitely a sense that "we gave LE as much time as we could, now it's totally your own judgement call how you want to proceed."

Also, like Miko, I got zero of my news from CNN. I'm in Back Bay and relied on the Globe, BPD and Gov Patrick's tweets, and this thread for my info. Major news networks sensationalizing what was a tense, but not particularly exciting, day was the last thing I wanted to watch.
posted by sonika at 4:11 PM on April 21, 2013


Here's a third Bostonian that ignored network TV. All of its information was at least thirty minutes out of date from what I was finding on the Internet, and I didn't want my daughter watching it anyway. Twitter, Reddit, the Ravelry forums, this thread and ChatMe (is that what we are calling it?) were my resources on Friday.
posted by Elementary Penguin at 4:14 PM on April 21, 2013


That video is amazing. Something is exploding near the other end of the boat, any idea what it is?
posted by Unified Theory at 4:15 PM on April 21, 2013


LOOK!!! MUCH OF BOSTON METRO TRANSIT IS ABOVE GROUND ON STREETS WITH TRAFFIC!! INBOUND AND OUTBOUND TRAINS ARE ALSO NOT ALWAYS RIGHT NEXT TO EACH OTHER!!!

SECURING EVERY SINGLE ABOVE GROUND STATION BETWEEN KENMORE AND BC, CLEVELAND CIRCLE, AND RIVERSIDE IS NOT REASONABLE OR EASY TO DO WHILE STILL ALLOWING THE T TO FUNCTION!

And seriously, many north side commuter rail stations are more like bus stops than stations.

Shutting any transport access down was THE best decision to prevent the suspect from fleeing AND TAKING HOSTAGES ON A TRAIN OR AT AN ABOVE GROUND TRAIN STATION!!!!

Seriously. You can't buy tickets for the T at half of the places you can board it. T us not a transit system like NYC or even Moscow for that matter. The public safety shut down was incredibly reasonable given the area the suspect was in has only above ground transport with no way to properly secure it.
posted by zizzle at 4:15 PM on April 21, 2013 [4 favorites]


That video is amazing. Something is exploding near the other end of the boat, any idea what it is?

Flashbang grenade.
posted by Purposeful Grimace at 4:16 PM on April 21, 2013 [1 favorite]


Great moments in journalistic disclaimers:
(From a Reuters story on the younger brother talking about the bombings the day after they happened.)
Tsarnaev was working out in the [college] gym from 8 to 10 p.m. on Tuesday, listening to music on his iPod, when he struck up a conversation with fellow sophomore Zach Bettencourt.

"It's crazy this is happening now," Bettencourt recalled Tsarnaev telling him when the bombings came up. "This (these bombings) is so easy to do. These tragedies happen all the time in Afghanistan and Iraq."

Reuters was unable to confirm the conversation with Tsarnaev, who was hospitalized, unable to speak and does not yet have a lawyer.
posted by LobsterMitten at 4:19 PM on April 21, 2013 [2 favorites]


Well, that 60 Minutes piece seems to confirm that he tried to kill himself at some point.
posted by ChurchHatesTucker at 4:20 PM on April 21, 2013


I'm not willing to argue the degrees of resemblance to martial law that the shelter-in-place order engendered but to my eyes, this is what martial law is when I think of it. Forcing people out of their homes, seizure of legally possessed firearms, considering whether or not the National Guard will be involved in pulling the unwilling out of their houses. And in the aftermath of that, you had police killing civilians for no reason.
posted by Purposeful Grimace at 4:23 PM on April 21, 2013 [1 favorite]


There is one set of residents who were forced out of their house because the police needed a base:
Dumitru and Olga Ciuc lived just a couple of doors down from where the boat was parked, and on Friday night, a police officer ordered them out, although he let them take their dog.

When the Ciucs, who immigrated to the United States from Romania, were allowed to return later that night to the house where they have lived for more than 20 years, they found the ransacked remnants of a SWAT command center. Officers had taken positions in second-floor rooms of their home that overlooked the 20-foot boat. Dressers were shifted about, and blinds and windows were removed. In a room that their granddaughter uses, a flower-patterned comforter had been thrown about, and a “Dora the Explorer” music book and large stuffed dog were splayed on the bed, under a pile of windows and blinds.

Mr. Ciuc picked up a window panel from the bed to reinstall it into what was now a gap in his wall where a stiff wind blew through, whipping up shiny, silver curtains. He smirked.

“Oh, my God,” he said. “I love the F.B.I.”
.
posted by Miko at 4:31 PM on April 21, 2013 [6 favorites]


roomthreeseventeen is right

Tsarneaev awake and responding to questions
posted by marienbad at 4:32 PM on April 21, 2013


Well, that 60 Minutes piece seems to confirm that he tried to kill himself at some point.

Pretty hard to see, but I think there's a point near the end of the helicopter vid where he looks like he raises his hand in what could be an attempt to shoot himself.
posted by Trochanter at 4:32 PM on April 21, 2013


Link to the Reuters story LobsterMitten mentioned.

The pictures flashed onto a television screen being watched by a group of students at Tsarnaev's dorm, Pine Dale Hall, and they were stunned to realize one of the suspects might be Tsarnaev. "We all thought it looked like him," said Bettencourt, 20, of Gloucester, Massachusetts. "We didn't believe it was him."

The group of students wondered aloud if they should walk downstairs and knock on Tsarnaev's dorm room door. "What if he had a gun?" Bettencourt said.

posted by mediareport at 4:32 PM on April 21, 2013


That video is amazing. Something is exploding near the other end of the boat, any idea what it is?

Probably a flash grenade(s).

According to the 60 Minutes interview with Boston Police Commissioner Ed Davis, the timeline is that after the shootout Dzhokhar got away in carjacked SUV, abandoned it after 4 or 5 block and proceeded on foot. Police determined that a 20 block cordon wold suffice. Other reports (i.e. not mentioned on 60 mintues) indicate that Dzhokhar was hiding in a boat a block outside the cordon.

A negotiator talked him out of the boat. He had a gunshot wound in the leg and one in his mouth and neck. They're not saying whether the mouth/neck shot was a suicide attempt.

A second feature of 60 Minutes looks at bomb sniffing dogs. A key point is that the marathon bombers placed their bombs after the area had already been checked by dogs.

Lots of video of cute puppies will be trained to bomb disposal dogs and stories of trained dogs in action. The bonds between handlers and trained dogs is obviously extremely close and wonderful to see in.

On preview:
Well, that 60 Minutes piece seems to confirm that he tried to kill himself at some point.

No, they explicitly stated that authorities are refusing to say it was suicide attempt.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 4:36 PM on April 21, 2013 [1 favorite]


If he shot himself in the mouth I can only imagine that the inside of his throat is burned to hell, in addition to the bullet damage. Is that something that can even heal back to normal?
posted by stopgap at 4:39 PM on April 21, 2013


No, they explicitly stated that authorities are refusing to say it was suicide attempt.

They confirmed that the entry point was through his mouth, which is more consistent with a suicide attempt that the "sharp injury to his neck" we were getting earlier.
posted by ChurchHatesTucker at 4:40 PM on April 21, 2013


And the Taliban are instructed to shoot the dogs first. Fuckers.
posted by Dr. Zira at 4:41 PM on April 21, 2013


They confirmed that the entry point was through his mouth, which is more consistent with a suicide attempt that the "sharp injury to his neck" we were getting earlier.

I hear yah, just noting that authorities are explicitly refusing to say it was a suicide attempt, i.e. they haven't confirmed it.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 4:45 PM on April 21, 2013


There is one set of residents who were forced out of their house because the police needed a base:

Except for the part you managed to quote but not read: "Officers had taken positions in second-floor rooms of their home that overlooked the 20-foot boat." (emphasis added)

That's not "We need a base; fuck the Third Amendment" -- that's "You are within sight of where we believe the most wanted man in the nation is hiding; let us take you somewhere else while we deal with it."
posted by Etrigan at 4:56 PM on April 21, 2013 [1 favorite]


Third Amendment! I knew it would become relevant.
posted by Area Man at 5:05 PM on April 21, 2013 [16 favorites]


If he shot himself in the mouth I can only imagine that the inside of his throat is burned to hell, in addition to the bullet damage. Is that something that can even heal back to normal?
Yes. The writer George Orwell was shot through the throat in 1937 during the Spanish Civil War but was presenting radio broadcasts by 1941. A lot must depend on the exact damage, however, but it is possible.
posted by Jehan at 5:07 PM on April 21, 2013 [1 favorite]


Commissioner Davis on 60 Minutes describing the scene at the boat: A gunshot was heard and officers returned fire. The order was given to cease fire.
posted by maggieb at 5:11 PM on April 21, 2013


Third Amendment! I knew it would become relevant.

Heh, I've been saying recently that everyone talks about the relevence of the 2nd Amendment, but we never debate whether the quartering of soldiers has a place in today's society.
posted by maryr at 5:13 PM on April 21, 2013 [2 favorites]


The group of students wondered aloud if they should walk downstairs and knock on Tsarnaev's dorm room door. "What if he had a gun?" Bettencourt said.

This is the part of the movie where I yell at the screen.
posted by desjardins at 5:15 PM on April 21, 2013 [13 favorites]


CNN's flailing around for other angles on the bombing, but I thought this article on the founder of the Israeli volunteer medical service Hatzalah was interesting: Saving 40,000 lives in under 3 minutes
The average response time of a traditional ambulance is 12 to 15 minutes -- we reduce it to less than three minutes. Our response is the fastest in the world. We call our approach a lifesaving flash mob. On motorcycles, traffic doesn't stop us. Nothing does.
It seems that the victims of the Boston bombing were treated rapidly and competently because there actually was a "lifesaving flash mob" in place: the medics and volunteers that were supporting the marathon behaved extraordinarily well; and this carried through to the hospitals, which had plans ready for dealing with crises. It would be great if this level of competency and cooperation could become part of our social infrastructure generally - not for just for sporting events, but for rapid responses in the community to things like heart attacks and injuries. My father's life was saved by volunteer paramedics,(*) incidentally. I can't say enough good things about them.

(*) Nothing is saved forever.
posted by Joe in Australia at 5:23 PM on April 21, 2013 [7 favorites]


It seems that the victims of the Boston bombing were treated rapidly and competently because there actually was a "lifesaving flash mob" in place: the medics and volunteers that were supporting the marathon behaved extraordinarily well; and this carried through to the hospitals, which had plans ready for dealing with crises.

There's photos some took from a few stories up of the bombing aftermath and it's amazing to see how quickly people got to action. Those that could help the injured did, while others started clearing out the fencing so emergency vehicles could get through.
posted by drezdn at 5:32 PM on April 21, 2013


I live in Newton, 50 yards from the Watertown border. After reading about the situation for a couple of hours I decided not to comply with the "request to shelter in place" that was current for Newton, and being expanded to Boston proper.

I got the family in the car and we left for the South Shore, picnic and seaside. As we left I saw a police roadblock at the entrance to Watertown and was glad to be out of it.

I suppose all's well that ends well, but I do think shutting down a major city because of a couple of dudes running amok sets a bad precedent, and potentially puts incentives in the wrong places for future people who might have a grudge against society, ie: makes this kind of thing more attractive, because it's more effective at causing mayhem.

On the subject of incentives, I think it's probably a bad thing that the trump incentive for the pols who ordered the lockdown is the motivation to cover one's arse: the fallout from not overreacting is much more serious than that for overreacting.

As background, I grew up in England in the 1970's and 80's and nobody would have dreamed of shutting down a whole city because of a bombing (likely paid for by the citizens of Boston, btw). This didn't mean we weren't horrified by it or taking it seriously enough, just that you can't let these things be blown out of proportion.

In the US, in Boston, any sense that "we're not going to let the terrorists change our way of life" has, apparently, been lost.
posted by grubby at 5:33 PM on April 21, 2013 [2 favorites]


I hope this isn't too weird to bring up in this context, but if there are Boston MeFites who are looking for something fun to do to get out of the house tomorrow night, it's our regular trivia meetup in Harvard Square tomorrow. It occurs to me after posting more than 30 of these, the posts are now totally opaque to anyone who isn't already a regular, but basically we show up about 7:30, drink a bunch of beer (or not; there's enough of us it isn't weird if you don't order anything) and answer trivia questions from 8-10. We usually win, but it's fun either way. Please feel free to join us, and don't be too thrown by all the Weezer parody song comments I made in the thread yesterday. It's maryr's fault.
posted by Horace Rumpole at 5:39 PM on April 21, 2013 [1 favorite]


As background, I grew up in England in the 1970's and 80's and nobody would have dreamed of shutting down a whole city because of a bombing (likely paid for by the citizens of Boston, btw). This didn't mean we weren't horrified by it or taking it seriously enough, just that you can't let these things be blown out of proportion.

In the US, in Boston, any sense that "we're not going to let the terrorists change our way of life" has, apparently, been lost.


I'm not saying England's approach was wrong, but it's hard to say it was empirically correct, given that the Troubles are generally accepted to have lasted for at least another decade after you apparently left England.
posted by Etrigan at 5:39 PM on April 21, 2013


shutting down a whole city because of a bombing

But that wasn't why it was shut down. The bombing happened Monday. The shutdown happened early Friday.

What is your alternative proposition, given that there was a man on the loose who obviously had no regard for human life?
posted by desjardins at 5:43 PM on April 21, 2013 [1 favorite]


What are you trying to accomplish by linking Boston to bombings that happened decades ago? It's not germane to the conversation at hand and feels kind of passive aggressive in a "your city isn't perfect" way which, yes, nearly everyone who lives here is aware Boston's past is... colorful.
posted by sonika at 5:45 PM on April 21, 2013 [1 favorite]


I so wish I could go to the trivia meet-up, but it's past the tot's bedtime and he would answer every question with either "bye," "memememememo" (Elmo), or "hat."
posted by sonika at 5:48 PM on April 21, 2013


In the US, in Boston, any sense that "we're not going to let the terrorists change our way of life" has, apparently, been lost.

Yeah, so I kind of think that maybe people were like "you know what, these guys killed 3 people (including an 8 year old child) and maimed many more on our city's favorite day of the year and then killed a cop and tried to kill others (and almost succeeded) so I'm happy to give up 12 hours of my day and stay inside if that means they can catch the guy. I ain't mad, I'm helping in whatever way I can."

I'm an American. I'm not a Bostonian but they are my fellow Americans. I'd have been happy to give up a full day of regular life not just to aid the police but as a way of honoring the lives lost in whatever little way I could, if that makes sense. I don't think that means that Americans are "letting the terrorists change our way of life", I think it means we're decent, rational, and fucking awesome, frankly.
posted by youandiandaflame at 5:51 PM on April 21, 2013 [5 favorites]


desjardins: a cordon around the area where the suspect was likely to be, East Watertown. The police did this, and had a larger cordon around the whole town of Watertown. Bear in mind that he was North of the Charles River, and on foot. It's simple to put road blocks on bridges.

It looks like a political decision to tell the other Western suburbs, then Boston proper, to put their lives on hold. I don't think it was an appropriate message to send, and personally I disregarded the "request". Judging by the traffic on 93 South, so did many many other people.
posted by grubby at 5:51 PM on April 21, 2013 [1 favorite]


I think I made the comparison in the old thread, but the nearest comparison I can think of would be the Dorner manhunt in Big Bear. Big Bear was "locked down" in a similar way, the major difference being that it was far enough from LA to avoid shutting down any of the city infrastructure. If you want to pick a manhunt to point at as an example of what we need to be afraid of as Americans, it'd be that one, in my opinion. I know I wasn't the only person pleasantly surprised to see this go down without the police shooting any civilians. I was impressed with how the Boston PD handled it.
posted by feloniousmonk at 5:52 PM on April 21, 2013 [2 favorites]


sonika: ignore that bit if you like. It's not really relevant to this discussion. On a personal note as a newly-arrived immigrant from the UK I did find it shocking to ride the T in the 90's and see a man wearing an IRA t-shirt.
posted by grubby at 5:55 PM on April 21, 2013


NYC here, we let terrorism that happened 12 years ago interrupt our daily lives. And gladly. Security is a fine thing.
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 5:57 PM on April 21, 2013


Chechens in U.S. Fear Reprisals:

“Most of us would be dead right now if it wasn’t for the United States giving us a home and saving us from all the violence,” he said. “It feels embarrassing for us. After all this hospitality we’re getting from Americans, to hear that some Chechen....” he said, breaking off. “It’s hard. It’s difficult to explain.”

[...] “I remember them in the dungeon just hiding from the bombs,” Mr. Tepsurkaev said of his cousins. “They’ve seen the screaming, they’ve seen the blood, but as you see they’re getting educated here, trying to get into college and living their lives. No hate, no violence. They’ve seen it, that’s why they appreciate it even more. But these guys who haven’t seen anything,” he said about the bombing suspects. “I have no idea what kind of crazy ideas they have going on in their head.”

posted by mediareport at 5:59 PM on April 21, 2013 [1 favorite]


It looks like a political decision to tell the other Western suburbs, then Boston proper, to put their lives on hold. I don't think it was an appropriate message to send, and personally I disregarded the "request". Judging by the traffic on 93 South, so did many many other people.

Despite your use of the word "tell" and the scare quotes around "request," your violation of it seems not to have led to any actual jackbooted stompery of your nether regions. Perhaps you might be willing to admit that it wasn't actually a kettling or a ghettoization or some similar execution of your civil rights?
posted by Etrigan at 6:01 PM on April 21, 2013 [9 favorites]


grubby - For what it's worth, that's just ignorance - Boston thinks it's sooooooooooo Irish but it's really only St. Patrick's Day Irish.
posted by maryr at 6:02 PM on April 21, 2013 [4 favorites]


but it's past the tot's bedtime and he would answer every question with either "bye," "memememememo" (Elmo), or "hat."

Funny you should say that, because I was just looking at the questions we got wrong last time.

In the NFL playoffs, the top two teams in each conference gain this advantage: ______
Puppeteer Kevin Clash lost his job playing this character after a sex scandal: _______
The South Park kids get advice about not doing drugs from a puppet named Mr. ______

We've got to get this kid on the team.
posted by Horace Rumpole at 6:08 PM on April 21, 2013 [22 favorites]


The Economist: Chechnya and the bombs in Boston

Most of those who live in the North Caucasus are caught somewhere in the middle: between a perpetually fearful state that is wary of the independent power base even peaceful Salafism represents and the Islamist rebels who, by simply asking for a package of bandages or a piece of stale bread before they return to the mountains, make them a target for the police. Local authorities have responded with paranoid and indiscriminate crackdowns, treating every Salafist as a potential terrorist. Moscow is largely out of energy and ideas; the conflict may have crossed into a state of intractability...

It remains unclear how much of this history had to do with the bombs in Boston. The fact that two young men of Chechen origin committed an act of terror is not the same as saying Chechen terrorism has come to United States...Although Doku Umarov, the nominal head of the North Caucasus militancy, declared in 2007 that “anyone who wages war against Islam and Muslims” are potential targets, no terror attacks in the West have been linked to Chechen or Caucasus militants. The website Kavkaz Center, the mouthpiece for the rebels that normally glorifies acts of terror carried out by North Caucasus fighters, made pains to disavow the Tsarnaev brothers and distance itself from the Boston attack.

posted by mediareport at 6:08 PM on April 21, 2013


Don't get me wrong, I thought the reaction of Boston was great until Friday: only a tiny minority of the people I have contact with even discussed the bombing after Monday. I was totally impressed and I really think that America has grown up in important ways since 9/11.

The reactions I saw from the people of Boston and Cambridge were sensible and proportional; the reaction from Watertown PD seems to have been both sensible and proportional, as well as brave; the reaction of the media and the city leadership has been borderline hysterical.
posted by grubby at 6:25 PM on April 21, 2013 [2 favorites]


I thought the reaction of Boston was great until Friday: only a tiny minority of the people I have contact with even discussed the bombing after Monday.

You do realize that there's nothing wrong with people who DID discuss the bombing after Monday, right? It was an act of terrorism that profoundly impacted a ton of people.
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 6:33 PM on April 21, 2013 [4 favorites]


Dr. Zira:

Check the decision:
The Oregon court assumed and respondent here contends that a failure to administer Miranda warnings necessarily breeds the same consequences as police infringement of a constitutional right, so that evidence uncovered following an unwarned statement must be suppressed as "fruit of the poisonous tree." We believe this view misconstrues the nature of the protections afforded by Miranda warnings, and therefore misreads the consequences of police failure to supply them.
Miranda isn't a constitutional right. Violation doesn't require exclusion.

Here's the operative part:
II
The arguments advanced in favor of suppression of respondent's written confession rely heavily on metaphor. One metaphor, familiar from the Fourth Amendment context, would require that respondent's confession, regardless of its integrity, voluntariness, and probative value, be suppressed as the "tainted fruit of the poisonous tree" of the Miranda violation. A second metaphor questions whether a
Page 470 U. S. 304
confession can be truly voluntary once the "cat is out of the bag." Taken out of context, each of these metaphors can be misleading. They should not be used to obscure fundamental differences between the role of the Fourth Amendment Amendment exclusionary rule is to deter unreasonable searches, no matter how probative their fruits. Dunaway v. New York, 442 U. S. 200, 442 U. S. 216-217 (1979); Brown v. Illinois, 422 U.S. at 422 U. S. 600-602.
"The exclusionary rule, . . . when utilized to effectuate the Fourth Amendment, serves interests and policies that are distinct from those it serves under the Fifth."
Id. at 422 U. S. 601. Where a Fourth Amendment violation "taints" the confession, a finding of voluntariness for the purposes of the Fifth Amendment is merely a threshold requirement in determining whether the confession may be admitted in evidence. Taylor v. Alabama, supra, at 457 U. S. 690. Beyond this, the prosecution must show a sufficient break in events to undermine the inference that the confession was caused by the Fourth Amendment violation.
The Miranda exclusionary rule, however, serves the Fifth Amendment and sweeps more broadly than the Fifth Amendment itself. It may be triggered even in the absence of a Fifth Amendment violation. [Footnote 1] The Fifth Amendment prohibits
Page 470 U. S. 307
use by the prosecution in its case in chief only of compelled testimony. Failure to administer Miranda warnings creates a presumption of compulsion. Consequently, unwarned statements that are otherwise voluntary within the meaning of the Fifth Amendment must nevertheless be excluded from evidence under Miranda. Thus, in the individual case, Miranda's preventive medicine provides a remedy even to the defendant who has suffered no identifiable constitutional harm. See New York v. Quarles, supra, at 467 U. S. 654; Michigan v. Tucker, 417 U. S. 433, 417 U. S. 444 (1974).
But the Miranda presumption, though irrebuttable for purposes of the prosecution's case in chief, does not require that the statements and their fruits be discarded as inherently tainted. Despite the fact that patently voluntary statements taken in violation of Miranda must be excluded from the prosecution's case, the presumption of coercion does not bar their use for impeachment purposes on cross-examination. Harris v. New York, 401 U. S. 222 (1971). The Court in Harris rejected as an "extravagant extension of the Constitution," the theory that a defendant who had confessed under circumstances that made the confession inadmissible, could thereby enjoy the freedom to
"deny every fact disclosed or discovered as a 'fruit' of his confession, free from confrontation with his prior statements,"
and that the voluntariness of his confession would be totally irrelevant. Id. at 401 U. S. 225, and n. 2. Where an unwarned statement is preserved for use in situations that fall outside the sweep of the Miranda presumption, "the primary criterion of admissibility
Page 470 U. S. 308
[remains] the 'old' due process voluntariness test." Schulhofer, Confessions and the Court, 79 Mich.L.Rev. 865, 877 (1981).
Unless it was actually cocerced, the doctrine of fruit of the poisonous tree does not apply to a failure to mirandize. The court would not apply the doctrine in this case because the test is objective--under Quarles even if the motivation is improper, there is no fruits bar to derivative use. Only if the there is actual coercion, are the fruits unusable.
posted by Ironmouth at 6:35 PM on April 21, 2013 [1 favorite]


grubby - For what it's worth, that's just ignorance - Boston thinks it's sooooooooooo Irish but it's really only St. Patrick's Day Irish.
There's a wonderful statistic to the effect that Irish ancestry is more common in the UK than the US. Indeed, there is no real UK equivalent to "Irish-American" because it's so completely unremarkable to have Irish ancestry. Ireland's hardly even a foreign country for most people, if at all. There are much stronger links between UK and Ireland than the US and Ireland. Somebody from Boston wearing an IRA tshirt is, like you say, pretty ignorant or at least callow.

Anyway, this is a derail, so I'll not go on.
posted by Jehan at 6:38 PM on April 21, 2013





In the US, in Boston, any sense that "we're not going to let the terrorists change our way of life" has, apparently, been lost


I don't think what you're talking about to applies to actually hunting down the terrorists.
posted by Ironmouth at 6:42 PM on April 21, 2013 [1 favorite]




... only a tiny minority of the people I have contact with even discussed the bombing after Monday. I was totally impressed and I really think that America has grown up in important ways since 9/11.

Are you saying it's childish to be bothered by a bomb going off in the streets of your town? That's the only way I can understand what you said there. Maybe you can explain it more clearly?
posted by benito.strauss at 6:54 PM on April 21, 2013 [1 favorite]


That Guardian article is pretty nasty, imo, and I agree with every point it makes regarding guns and gun control. To suggest that London (and British authorities) just took the IRA bombing campaign in stride, and that all was savoir faire everywhere is unbelievably self-serving and false.
posted by feste at 6:54 PM on April 21, 2013 [1 favorite]


Apparently Dzokhar is writing now in the hospital. Per CNN.
posted by sweetkid at 6:59 PM on April 21, 2013


After saving the terrorist's life through extraordinary medical intervention, it would be ironic to give him the death penalty.
posted by five fresh fish at 6:59 PM on April 21, 2013 [4 favorites]


We don't do irony well.
posted by ChurchHatesTucker at 7:05 PM on April 21, 2013 [5 favorites]


Unfortunately this WSJ article is behind a paywall, so I can't read it, but apparently in the article it is revealed that Tamerlan and Dzhokhar called their mother in Dagestan during the shootout with police? Anybody care to share that part of the article with us po' folk?
posted by (Arsenio) Hall and (Warren) Oates at 7:10 PM on April 21, 2013


So who is paying for Dzokhar's medical treatment?

And to hear that the victims are being charged by hospitals (or warned about coverage limits) is despicable.
posted by marienbad at 7:10 PM on April 21, 2013


Of course they are being charged by hospitals.
posted by sweetkid at 7:13 PM on April 21, 2013 [2 favorites]


(A)Ha(W)O: The LA Times has this story: Bomb suspect's mother: Tamerlan Tsarnaev's touching call
posted by FelliniBlank at 7:31 PM on April 21, 2013 [1 favorite]


marienbad lives in the UK. It's totally natural (and correct!) for her to be amazed and dismayed. TWIAVBP.
posted by Ivan Fyodorovich at 7:32 PM on April 21, 2013


marienbad lives in the UK. It's totally natural (and correct!) for her to be amazed and dismayed. TWIAVBP.

yeah it's a bummer that we don't have universal healthcare, but this is not the Boston hospitals' fault right now in 2013 and it would be bizarre for them to make a special case for this incident.

Also people from the UK are mostly aware we don't have universal healthcare in the US.
posted by sweetkid at 7:36 PM on April 21, 2013 [1 favorite]


“When [Tamerlan] talked to me that last time, Dzhokhar was in his house too, and he said he would give him a lift home,” their mother said.

Jesus Christ, that poor woman.
posted by FelliniBlank at 7:36 PM on April 21, 2013 [2 favorites]


marienbad: "And to hear that the victims are being charged by hospitals (or warned about coverage limits) is despicable."

Deplorable, not despicable. Voting down universal healthcare is despicable. Charging victims for treatment because there is no universal healthcare is a deplorable situation.
posted by Bugbread at 7:40 PM on April 21, 2013 [8 favorites]


I was in London during one of the IRA bombing campaigns. I was having a meal in the cafe opposite the Camden Town McDonalds ten minutes before it went off. Like many Londoners, I lost count of the number of times I had to be evacuated from Oxford Street or one of the tube stations underneath it.

You get blasé about it because there's really no option. I am deadly afraid of heights but some of the mountain bike trails I ride are insanely exposed. You're afraid for the first 2 minutes, then you realize there's really no point and just get on with it. Familiarity breeds contempt. The US is fortunate not to have had a really consistent campaign of terror but I'm sure it would get just as routine if it ever did.
posted by unSane at 7:41 PM on April 21, 2013 [4 favorites]


"Also people from the UK are mostly aware we don't have universal healthcare in the US."

Yes, but that doesn't mean that in the context of particular, extreme circumstances they can't be amazed and dismayed all over again about this.

And if you assumed that she knew this, then why did you write your comment?
posted by Ivan Fyodorovich at 7:41 PM on April 21, 2013


Bomb suspect's mother: Tamerlan Tsarnaev's touching call

I'm curious about the disconnect between the uncle calling the boys losers and the parents claiming this was an inside job. I'm sure it will be explained eventually, but it's one of the unanswered questions on my mind.
posted by Room 641-A at 7:44 PM on April 21, 2013


"I'm curious about the disconnect between the uncle calling the boys losers and the parents claiming this was an inside job. I'm sure it will be explained eventually, but it's one of the unanswered questions on my mind."

Everything else aside, it's no mystery, surely, that parents would be in denial while a more distant relative would not? The uncle hadn't any contact with the brothers for six years, IIRC. They talked to their mother regularly.
posted by Ivan Fyodorovich at 7:46 PM on April 21, 2013 [3 favorites]




The parents having moved back to Dagestan vs. the uncle living in Maryland might also inform in part their respective immediate reactions: the parents weren't nearly so much in the position to deal with direct retribution from angry Americans.

But further to that it sounds like the uncle had very specifically had a falling out with the older brother.
posted by cortex at 7:52 PM on April 21, 2013


People removed from an conflict can feel like supporting "their" side (say, by heritage or political leaning) perhaps without knowing first hand what the actual impacts on the ground are, for people who have to live through the conflict day to day.

It's been remarked that when the Sikhs were campaigning for their own state of Khalistan (the conflict that led to the armed storming of the Golden Temple in Amritsar, and the assassination of Indira Gandhi as a result), much of the financial & political support came from expats in places like Canada & the US, who possibly wouldn't have ever considered going back to live in such a state even if it were created. Who knows, though? Plenty of Jewish people left comfortable lives to settle in Israel, so it might happen.

Getting back to the main point, it's easier to support these kinds of things from a distance.

Similarly, I sometimes wear Zapatista t-shirts, which are a travel souvenir from Mexico & a broad general support for that movement, although to be honest I don't know the ins & outs that much, and don't have a legitimate dog in that fight anyway. It's a bit like wearing a Che Guevara t-shirt, or hipsters in Palestinian keffiye scarves. They were quite de rigeur a few years back, weren't they? I'd cut the IRA shirted guy some slack, and put him into a similar kind of boat.
posted by UbuRoivas at 7:56 PM on April 21, 2013 [1 favorite]


Wow. WTF. This story is so cinematic. Nightmare cinema but still.
posted by sweetkid at 7:56 PM on April 21, 2013


Whoops, my comment above was in response to "Somebody from Boston wearing an IRA tshirt is, like you say, pretty ignorant or at least callow."
posted by UbuRoivas at 7:59 PM on April 21, 2013


Maybe this belongs in MetaTalk, but re: that smug Guardian gun control article, maybe someone can start a new thread called, "I'd like to take this opportunity to capitalize upon this tragedy to grind my axe about gun control, civil liberties, immigration reform, health care, the IRA etc."
posted by seemoreglass at 7:59 PM on April 21, 2013 [3 favorites]


ICYMI: The 60 Minutes piece.
posted by wensink at 8:01 PM on April 21, 2013


seemoreglass, I think you're looking for this?
posted by Lemurrhea at 8:04 PM on April 21, 2013 [11 favorites]




Lemurrhea, I don't think I've ever seen that before. It's pretty great.
posted by Ivan Fyodorovich at 8:07 PM on April 21, 2013


Oh dear, it's the "start your own thread" thing again. I can't see at all how that Guardian article is off topic. It's specifically about the bombings & the police reaction. It's obvious from the title what the article is about, so if you don't want to read it you can just move on. Or flag it & move on if it's that offensive.
posted by UbuRoivas at 8:08 PM on April 21, 2013 [1 favorite]


Video of the kinds of house raids the police teams were making in Watertown.

Well, that was absolutely terrifying. How to explain the neighborhood cheering and high fiving LE after suspect 2 was captured?
posted by murfed13 at 8:14 PM on April 21, 2013 [1 favorite]


That's not "We need a base; fuck the Third Amendment" -- that's "You are within sight of where we believe the most wanted man in the nation is hiding; let us take you somewhere else while we deal with it."

Etrigan, if I read you right I think we have a similar perspective on this - they had to do what they had to do and I don't, at all, think it was wrong.. I cite this only to admit upfront that yes, they did forcibly remove someone from their house (something Skygazer challenged earlier, but this is the only, only instance I can find). It wasn't to protect them exactly, though, because they don't seem to have removed people in the other houses that bordered on the backyard with the boat It was because it gave the FBI team the best vantage point to work from, as far as it's possible to tell from the story.

I don't care and I didn't get the sense they cared. I have a feeling everyone from this neighborhood will get some money (probably 18 months from now after a shit-ton of paperwork, but still), and they can put the windows back in and re-make the bed without much trouble now that a violent desperado is no longer holed up their backyard.
posted by Miko at 8:15 PM on April 21, 2013


I know they said it was East Watertown, Dexter, Laurel, and School streets. I don't know Watertown so I don't know enough to tell if that's the whole perimeter. However, since they actually did have the perimeter surrounded physically by police, it would have been pretty easy to tell if you were within or outside of it.

Also Mt. Auburn to the north and Arsenal to the south. This was basically it, though...
posted by rollbiz at 8:20 PM on April 21, 2013


Wow. WTF. This story is so cinematic. Nightmare cinema but still.

It's also completely different from the rather sad LA Times article (previously linked to) based on an interview with the Tsarnaev brothers' mother which said the last time Tamerlan talked to her was Thursday morning.

Is the WSJ following CNN's lead at this point?
posted by nangar at 8:21 PM on April 21, 2013




I have a feeling everyone from this neighborhood will get some money (probably 18 months from now after a shit-ton of paperwork, but still)

I'd like to see how this pans out, because that kind of callous disregard for the problems they cause is exactly why I'd refuse/make a big stink as they dragged me away in just that kind of situation.
posted by ChurchHatesTucker at 8:21 PM on April 21, 2013


the uncle had very specifically had a falling out with the older brother.

Thanks cortex, that's exactly the kind of thing I looking out for.
posted by Room 641-A at 8:22 PM on April 21, 2013


The parents having moved back to Dagestan vs. the uncle living in Maryland might also inform in part their respective immediate reactions: the parents weren't nearly so much in the position to deal with direct retribution from angry Americans.

Or that reflects that the uncle likes living in US and has become more integrated into American society compared to the parents who (presumably) chose to leave. I mean, I don't know what his neighbors are like, but the uncle could genuinely like the United States and be angry with his nephews for killing people.
posted by maryr at 8:22 PM on April 21, 2013 [2 favorites]


marienbad - that's interesting. HuffPo has a video up in which the mother claims Tamerlan was being controlled by the FBI and they monitored their internet.
posted by maryr at 8:28 PM on April 21, 2013


but the uncle could genuinely like the United States and be angry with his nephews for killing people.

I think that's what stood out -- that he didn't express any surprise or sadness, even while acknowledging their guilt. After seeing the article cortex linked to it makes sense.
posted by Room 641-A at 8:29 PM on April 21, 2013


I imagine Dzhokhar Tsarnaev's hospital bills are being paid by the justice system, which is to say, by taxpayers. Feel free to correct me if I'm mistaken.
posted by sonika at 8:31 PM on April 21, 2013


“He said he got a private phone call from [the FBI] and said that they told him he was under suspicion and should come see them.”

The timing of that phone call is so interesting. Puts it before the release of the photos - meaning the FBI would have had to absolutely know who he was, and be calling him directly, well before they sought verification by releasing the photos.

If this can be believed, that is. Hard to say.
posted by Miko at 8:31 PM on April 21, 2013


Uh... I may take that all back. The article marienbad linked is sourced from a story NBC's web site scrubbed which originally cited a DailyMail article. Between HuffPo and therightscoop, I don't really have that much faith in either's first hand news gathering.
posted by maryr at 8:32 PM on April 21, 2013


"Of course they are being charged by hospitals."
posted by sweetkid

That you say "Of course..." is so sad.


I read your comment as saying that the hospitals should cover healthcare for this situation for free, just because it was so horrible, while horrible things happen every day that put people in the hospital.

My comment was not in any way meant to be some sort of support for not having universal healthcare. I wasn't aware you were making this into a "tsk tsk America" situation about universal healthcare. I wish we had it, too, but we don't, and that's not the hospitals' fault.

Deplorable vs despicable, as BugBread mentioned, might have been a better way to go with your comment.
posted by sweetkid at 8:33 PM on April 21, 2013 [2 favorites]


Or not like the United States particularly (or like it well enough, but feel like an outsider or whatever) and think killing people sucks.

Sorry, the whole liking the United States thing really pushes my buttons. Not liking it 'enough' by whoever's standard doesn't make you a potential terrorist.
posted by hoyland at 8:35 PM on April 21, 2013 [5 favorites]


I won't link it directly as it's an active fundraiser, but The One Fund Boston is specifically raising money for victims, which would presumably help out with hospital bills. The city is, in its way, helping to take care of its own.
posted by sonika at 8:36 PM on April 21, 2013 [2 favorites]


Etrigan, if I read you right I think we have a similar perspective on this - they had to do what they had to do and I don't, at all, think it was wrong.. I cite this only to admit upfront that yes, they did forcibly remove someone from their house (something Skygazer challenged earlier, but this is the only, only instance I can find). It wasn't to protect them exactly, though, because they don't seem to have removed people in the other houses that bordered on the backyard with the boat It was because it gave the FBI team the best vantage point to work from, as far as it's possible to tell from the story.

The story doesn't say that no one else was removed from their homes, and I'd say it's a pretty uncharitable reading of what happened to suggest that the police didn't actually care about whether these two people -- and their dog -- should be removed from what was likely to be a shootout-slash-explosion. That might have ended up happening only because the cops were there, which they only were because it was a good vantage point, but honestly, if the NYT were reporting that Dumitru and Olga Ciuc were hanging around the SWAT team offering them cookies while that asshole was 20 feet away and still armed? That would be so incredibly worse.

Yes, the Ciucs deserve some recompense, but anyone who hints that their rights were trampled on in any way whatsoever should just admit "I am looking for any reason, or none at all, to be mad at The Man."
posted by Etrigan at 8:38 PM on April 21, 2013 [2 favorites]


Now say that again, but this time pretend that you're King George III.
posted by Joe in Australia at 8:44 PM on April 21, 2013 [1 favorite]


Video of the kinds of house raids the police teams were making in Watertown.

WTF.
posted by homunculus at 8:44 PM on April 21, 2013 [3 favorites]


About Dzhokhar's medical bills, as a full-time UMass Dartmouth student this semester, he has health insurance coverage.
posted by FelliniBlank at 8:44 PM on April 21, 2013


Video of the kinds of house raids the police teams were making in Watertown.

Titled: "Police perform house-to-house raids in Watertown MA ripping innocent families from their homes."

Was that 8 adult males, 2 adult females, and a german shepherd?
Families these days!
posted by de at 8:45 PM on April 21, 2013


LE might also have been concerned that if they were shooting from the Ciuc's window that it would be conceivable that they were in danger of getting hit on the crossfire should Tsarnaev start shooting back. Maybe not, but there is probably some middle ground between concern for the public and destroyers of rights, bedspreads.
posted by sonika at 8:45 PM on April 21, 2013


(unless he waived it, but that would mean he had other insurance.)
posted by FelliniBlank at 8:45 PM on April 21, 2013


Video of the kinds of house raids the police teams were making in Watertown

That was horrifying.
posted by sweetkid at 8:47 PM on April 21, 2013 [1 favorite]


"Sorry, the whole liking the United States thing really pushes my buttons. Not liking it 'enough' by whoever's standard doesn't make you a potential terrorist."

Emphatically, yes. The uncle's statements seem to me to be uncomfortably obsequious, that he's quite aware that his very right (in the public's mind) to be here is hanging in the balance.

Regardless, being shocked and sad at the killing of an eight-year-old boy is not, or should not, be dependent upon whether one does or does not "like" the US. To assume that his reason for being upset at this reveals that he's "one of us" is insulting.
posted by Ivan Fyodorovich at 8:47 PM on April 21, 2013 [2 favorites]


Well, even with insurance, bills can pile up.

But considering that he's probably never going to be a free man ever again for the rest of his life, they'll either be paid by a separate party, the tax payers, or the medical facilities will have to just eat the bills.
posted by spinifex23 at 8:48 PM on April 21, 2013


The timing of that phone call is so interesting. Puts it before the release of the photos - meaning the FBI would have had to absolutely know who he was, and be calling him directly, well before they sought verification by releasing the photos.

Yeah, I'm not sure I buy that. The NYT reported that the FBI had failed to identify the suspects using image comparison software (even though they had records of the brothers' images); that they went ahead with releasing the photos in order to speed up identification; and that the fingerprint they took after the shootout was the first time they had identification of Tamerlan.

(Course, as you say, Miko... "If this can be believed.")
posted by torticat at 8:48 PM on April 21, 2013


it's a pretty uncharitable reading of what happened to suggest that the police didn't actually care about whether these two people -- and their dog -- should be removed from what was likely to be a shootout-slash-explosion

Well, that's fine, because I don't give it that reading. I'm sure they care, but it's pretty clear the police needed the house to do stuff, and that's why they brought them out and inhabited the place after the people left. Presumably, if it was just for protection, the police wouldn't have hung out in the building, taking out the windows and using it as a place to oversee operations. The Ciucs were evacuated in part to make the house a place that would both allow the police activity, and prevent them (and dog) from being present while that activity went down.

anyone who hints that their rights were trampled on in any way whatsoever should just admit "I am looking for any reason, or none at all, to be mad at The Man."

Maybe. I'm not mad at The Man for any of this and it reads like they were pretty chill about it - but it's clear they didn't have a choice. I am totally in favor of what the police strategy was in this incident, but I don't see any point in lying about it, and if someone is forcing us to assert that "no one had to leave their homes," we can't actually do that. These may be the only people who were forced to leave their home (though I assume that the Henneberrys didn't hang out during the boat firefight, either). There's nothing uncharitable about noting that this thing happened. The outcome was good and the effort was the right scale to achieve it.
posted by Miko at 8:50 PM on April 21, 2013


Video of the kinds of house raids the police teams were making in Watertown.

This video goes against the first person descriptions I heard from folks in Watertown. Not saying it didn't happen, something clearly happened. Could someone track down more info about this video? I'm just seeing it embedded with the same verbatim text on a bunch of right wing blogs.
posted by jessamyn at 8:51 PM on April 21, 2013 [2 favorites]


Miko, I'm curious why you think that residents might see some compensation for this. It's always been my understanding — which could certainly be mistaken — the law enforcement is pretty much shielded from liability for things they officially do, up to and including property damage, excepting provable excessive force or whatever, and regardless of whether those involved were guilty parties. But I don't really know how the limits of this play out.
posted by Ivan Fyodorovich at 8:53 PM on April 21, 2013


Video of the kinds of house raids the police teams were making in Watertown.

It looks kinda rough, but it really, really lacks context. Video opens with several police already on the porch. How long were they already knocking? Two seconds? A minute? Two minutes? We have no idea - they've got a pretty big crowd of cops assembled already, so I really don't think we're seeing the first knock. Even so, it's a full 20 seconds before anyone answers. Then, a clown car full of people file out, with a couple of them taking forever. The fact they all look to be young adult males might have had the cops on higher alert, as well. It's hard for me to understand why people in that neighborhood wouldn't be kind of ready and waiting for the police and ready to make this thing simple. But who knows. It's not the kind of video that offers much information as a standalone document.

Certainly, if they or anyone else think they were wronged in this search, they are empowered to bring a complaint and I hope they will. But it's impossible to tell from the video what the actual content of that interaction was.

(Course, as you say, Miko... "If this can be believed.")

Yeah, I gotta admit I'm reading everything she says skeptically...especially because it looks like the defense strategy might be to argue that the brothers were framed.
posted by Miko at 8:55 PM on April 21, 2013


Could someone track down more info about this video?

I'd love that too. I tried, but the video itself seems to have been virally circulated mainly on lots of libertarian-type fora and though there is usually a lot of text associated with it, I have not seen a single lick of info about what was actually happening there.

Come to think, we don't even know it's really from Watertown. It likely is, but that's how little information is associated with the thing.

Miko, I'm curious why you think that residents might see some compensation for this.

You know, I don't really know that. I just kind of assumed, maybe based on New England culture, that either there'd be a compensation mechanism or, if not, someone would go complain to city hall or the BPD and there'd be letters to the editor and eventually something would happen. But I have no real basis for asserting that they'll get paid.
posted by Miko at 8:58 PM on April 21, 2013


I was looking for the original uploader, too, but couldn't track it down. I found at least two YouTube accounts with the video.

Off the top of my head, this video could be:

1) A genuine video of a Watertown search that day.
2) Some other search involving a large team of heavily armed police on a different day, aimed at that specific house for a specific reason, that was uploaded on April 19 with a false description.
posted by maudlin at 8:59 PM on April 21, 2013 [5 favorites]


Days later, it was the son [Tamerlan] who phoned his mother. The two, in recent years, had shared a powerful transformation to a more intense brand of Islam.

Whoa, that's interesting.
posted by FelliniBlank at 8:59 PM on April 21, 2013


It's always been my understanding — which could certainly be mistaken — the law enforcement is pretty much shielded from liability for things they officially do, up to and including property damage

My understanding is that the individual police are not going to get individually held to be liable for damages, but that doesn't keep the police as a government body from possibly having to make restitution. As always the real answers are complex. The Straight Dope had a column that talks about some of the relevant laws and issues in the US.
posted by jessamyn at 8:59 PM on April 21, 2013 [2 favorites]


Video of the kinds of house raids the police teams were making in Watertown.












No fucking comment.


~

posted by Skygazer at 9:06 PM on April 21, 2013


Video of the kinds of house raids the police teams were making in Watertown.

That is very unlike my experience (described upthread) and the experience of neighbors that I spoke to. Obviously, it did happen, it's on video, and I don't know the circumstance. And it does look very much like East Watertown to me, though can't identify where.

I believe that law enforcement were receiving tips on suspicious activity throughout the day on Friday and would focus their attention based on these tips. If you were watching the news incessantly, like me, you know that they would report that police were focusing on this apartment building or that house and, yes, bringing people out. And you wouldn't know - is this the house that the suspect is hiding in? Did he take hostages here? Remember that we knew very little at this time, just that a dangerous person was on the loose with explosives and firearms.
These tips roused innocent people, it is true, but that same sort of tip led to the boat and the capture. How should law enforcement have handled it? Well, they have to treat every tip as if it could be the real deal, and one of them was. It's a tough situation.
posted by bobobox at 9:08 PM on April 21, 2013 [1 favorite]


This paragraph from jessamyn's Straight Dope link is what I had in mind:
Fact is, it's not easy recovering for damage caused by the police regardless of circumstances. Courts have refused compensation to people whose property the police damaged while executing arrest warrants or search warrants. They've also refused compensation when police intentionally damaged property in an effort to flush out a suspect. Of the state courts that have considered the issue so far, only three, Minnesota, New Jersey, and Texas, have allowed those with damaged property to recover.
I was sure that in the specific example of the police doing damage on entry or in the course of a search, whether or not a suspect is found guilty, is pretty much never compensated. Lots of perfectly innocent people (or landlords) have to replace doors and whatnot all the time (as well as damage done in the course of searching a premises under a warrant) without compensation.

This is what I had in mind because I couldn't quite see what kind of "damages" people moved from their homes, or kept in their homes, or whatever we're talking about, would be. If you can't recover damages when the police storm through your property while chasing a suspect, I'd think that damages from what we're talking about would be even more unlikely.
posted by Ivan Fyodorovich at 9:12 PM on April 21, 2013


Here's another search video found on Watertown Patch.

A commenter linked to some more: this one, and then a few by the same woman: this one, this one ("we all know that dogs get shot in these situations" as the cops are petting the dog), this one (where they have their own home searched).
posted by Miko at 9:15 PM on April 21, 2013 [7 favorites]


I'd think that damages from what we're talking about would be even more unlikely.

They might be. And there might indeed be no law establishing such rights. Still, people did their part, and I'd expect people to make some noise. Maybe one of the charities like OneFund will have enough left to help offset repair costs.
posted by Miko at 9:17 PM on April 21, 2013


Yeah, I gotta admit I'm reading everything she says skeptically...especially because it looks like the defense strategy might be to argue that the brothers were framed.

I can guarantee you that despite the rumors flying around, no legitimate defense attorney is going to argue he was framed.
posted by murfed13 at 9:23 PM on April 21, 2013 [1 favorite]


Sorry, I have no understanding of how a defense might actually approach this so I appreciate the correction. It sounds like that's her idea, anyway.
posted by Miko at 9:24 PM on April 21, 2013


no legitimate defense attorney is going to argue he was framed.

agree, that would be a gross disservice on any defense attorney's part.
posted by sweetkid at 9:26 PM on April 21, 2013


And it does look very much like East Watertown to me, though can't identify where.

Are those Watertown standard recycling bins along the street there? And was it recycling day on Friday?

(Also, yes, I'd imagine the police would be more on edge if you hadn't been answering the door.)
posted by maryr at 9:26 PM on April 21, 2013


“He said he got a private phone call from [the FBI] and said that they told him he was under suspicion and should come see them.”

> The timing of that phone call is so interesting. Puts it before the release of the photos - meaning the FBI would have had to absolutely know who he was, and be calling him directly, well before they sought verification by releasing the photos.

If this can be believed, that is. Hard to say.


If he said that, it's possible that it was a way to tell her he was worried without admitting to anything. It also possible the FBI did contact him, even though they hadn't matched him with one of the people they were looking for from photographic and video evidence yet, because he's someone in the Boston area they had previously questioned about possible ties to a terrorist group (albeit one unlikely to attack the US, and FBI didn't think he was involved anyway). So, I'm not sure what to make of this, but it's interesting.
posted by nangar at 9:27 PM on April 21, 2013 [1 favorite]




Okay, seriously, not being flippant or anything here. Maybe I've watched too many American TV shows and movies, or maybe I've heard too many descriptions on MeFi of SWAT teams kicking down doors, shooting dogs, and tazing grandmothers, but: what's the big deal about the video up above? It doesn't strike me as being particularly "OMG" worthy, but everyone here seems fairly in agreement that it's shocking in some way. What am I missing?
posted by Bugbread at 9:40 PM on April 21, 2013 [2 favorites]


Are those Watertown standard recycling bins along the street there?

Ha! Oh, for sure. You know, this is really ridiculous but it's been bothering me... Watertown gets one day where everyone in the country is looking at it and it's trash day! Everyone's trash is out on the street! So irritating. (they picked it up the next day)
posted by bobobox at 9:45 PM on April 21, 2013 [2 favorites]


More visuals of the kinds of Watertown house raids.

what's the big deal about the video up above?


It's like prepper porn for one thing. Not that I would know.
posted by Camofrog at 9:45 PM on April 21, 2013


Yeah, I'm not seeing that much to react to, either. This is pretty much what it sounded like it was on the scanner and from people who were there.

People see what they are primed to see. If "immanent police state takeover" is a big thing in your head, this is going to look like that to you. If not, it looks like an intense, tense, pretty extreme but mostly understood, long-ass day of crime scene investigation and fugitive hunting.
posted by Miko at 9:49 PM on April 21, 2013 [2 favorites]


That's a beautiful bit of magical thinking.

Of course, that wasn't martial law, though even though it looked like it, and those people deserved to be ripped out of their houses without a warrant, and searched, and of course those weren't soldiers, they were simply cops dressed up like soldiers.

Peoples Rights are never stomped on under extra-legal gray areas either.

No. Nothing happened. Everyone just go back to sleep.
posted by Skygazer at 9:55 PM on April 21, 2013 [2 favorites]


For a split second, I thought "Huh? Porn for preppies?" Then I went and Googled it. New word for me, and it's going to take a long time for me to see it as anything other than another word for "prep" or "preppie".
posted by Bugbread at 9:57 PM on April 21, 2013


Skygazer: "No. Nothing happened. Everyone just go back to sleep."

I don't really get expressions like this. Is it supposed to make people think, "Hey, wait, SkyGazer's right"? I don't think that approach has a very high success rate. Is it just a way to show contempt for other MeFites? What's the objective?
posted by Bugbread at 10:01 PM on April 21, 2013 [18 favorites]


No. Nothing happened. Everyone just go back to sleep.

Sheeple. You know you want to say it. You're so close. SHEEEEPLE!
posted by rollbiz at 10:12 PM on April 21, 2013 [29 favorites]


It's sheeple! Soylent Blonde is SHEEPLE!
posted by Ivan Fyodorovich at 10:16 PM on April 21, 2013


No, not at all, actually. I have great respect for the people of Metafilter for the most part.
posted by Skygazer at 10:17 PM on April 21, 2013 [1 favorite]


And it would actually be Meeple anyway..
posted by Skygazer at 10:19 PM on April 21, 2013 [5 favorites]


That search video linked by nickyskye is precisely the fucked up bullshit that makes people hate cops. A complete disregard of constitutional rights carried out by armed thugs.
posted by Purposeful Grimace at 10:23 PM on April 21, 2013 [1 favorite]


It's like prepper porn for one thing. Not that I would know.

Dear Prepper Forum,

I never thought this would happen to me, but I was just relaxing at home the other day, when I looked out the window & saw no less than 10 SWAT officers approaching my house...
posted by UbuRoivas at 10:29 PM on April 21, 2013 [17 favorites]


So basically, Skygazer, you're saying that the whole thing was a set up by the police to deprive people of their civil liberties ‒ the whole thing the bombings, the manhunt, everything? You think we already live in a police state, and elected officials have no real power and only do what the police tell them to do? And you think all Bostonians are sheep and absolutely contemptible for not rising up in an armed uprising the minute the manhunt was underway?
posted by nangar at 10:30 PM on April 21, 2013


I wonder how many people will get UboRoivas's reference. That feels like a million years ago, another age.
posted by Ivan Fyodorovich at 10:33 PM on April 21, 2013 [3 favorites]


nangar: "So basically, Skygazer, you're saying that the whole thing was a set up by the police to deprive people of their civil liberties, the whole thing the bombings, the manhunt, everything? You think we already live in a police state, and elected officials have no real power and only do what the police tell them to do? And you think all Bostonians are sheep and absolutely contemptible for not rising up in an armed uprising the minute the manhunt was underway?"

I'm not getting that vibe for him, so much as the bombings were real, the manhunt was real but carried out using the equivalent of martial law (if not technically martial law), people were deprived of their civil liberties, and the people of Boston and MetaFilter are turning a blind eye to this constitutional trampling. At least, that's how I'm interpreting what he's saying.
posted by Bugbread at 10:41 PM on April 21, 2013 [1 favorite]


Then what should the police have done?
posted by dirigibleman at 10:44 PM on April 21, 2013 [1 favorite]


So basically, Skygazer, you're saying that the whole thing was a set up by the police to deprive people of their civil liberties ‒ the whole thing the bombings, the manhunt, everything? You think we already live in a police state, and elected officials have no real power and only do what the police tell them to do? And you think all Bostonians are sheep and absolutely contemptible for not rising up in an armed uprising the minute the manhunt was underway?

Um, nope. nope..nope and nope to all of that.

I am talking about the dangers of hugely bloated and absurdly heavily armed LE establishment with what seems like not only outrageous allowances via the laws passed since 911 to not only suspend basic rights and civil liberties, but to inhabit and move about under such a doublethink mode that would go by the name of "voluntary lockdown" and the absolutely terrible precedent this has set for how LE on every level are going to feel they have a right to operate going forward.

That's not even mentioning the brand new world that's now been opened up to every half-wit shithead with a half-assed bomb and gripe and psychological problem, to think they can terrorize and think they can shut down WHOLE CITIES and stop the free movement of MILLIONS of people if they can get the magical grandiose appellation terrorist put next to their name.

All that stuff you wrote, is purely you though I'm afraid to tell you.
posted by Skygazer at 10:44 PM on April 21, 2013 [7 favorites]


I'm not getting that vibe for him, so much as the bombings were real, the manhunt was real but carried out using the equivalent of martial law (if not technically martial law), people were deprived of their civil liberties, and the people of Boston and MetaFilter are turning a blind eye to this constitutional trampling. At least, that's how I'm interpreting what he's saying.

That's exactly it, BugBread.
posted by Skygazer at 10:46 PM on April 21, 2013 [2 favorites]




A pair of people have just killed a person and carjacked another, while transporting homemade bombs. These same people set bombs off in another part of the city. During the chase and confrontation, these people put up heavy armed resistance that includes throwing more bombs all over the place. One is killed, but the other shoots his way out. It is not known where he is, what condition he is in, or if he has help beyond the partner he ran over to get away.

What is the proper police response to this situation?
posted by dirigibleman at 10:53 PM on April 21, 2013 [1 favorite]


the dangers of hugely bloated and absurdly heavily armed LE establishment

Thing is, you know who works for this thuggish organization? People who are pretty normal people and don't have any interest in taking over anything. I know a cop who is in the local ballet of the Nutcracker every year, because his daughter is. This wild-eyed cop-takeover paranoia, I don't get it. Where are the people who on board with this idea?
posted by Camofrog at 10:57 PM on April 21, 2013 [2 favorites]


Those were questions. I at least hope you understand that's how you coming across, Skygazer.

I wish you could engage in this conversation without being so fucking insulting, but I'm not sure how you could engage with people you consider "sheep". Maybe entertain the idea that we might not all actually be complete fucking idiots who will respond to nothing other than hyperbole and name calling because that's all you think any of us are capable responding to? But I don't think that's possible.
posted by nangar at 11:15 PM on April 21, 2013 [5 favorites]


*goes back to sleep*
posted by adipocere at 11:22 PM on April 21, 2013


This wild-eyed cop-takeover paranoia, I don't get it.

How well police are integrated with their community varies wildly across America. I mean, just absolutely wildly. My impression of Watertown is that it's a place where relations are really quite good. I don't think there's much in this incident to support "cop-takeover", but there certainly are places in America where I understand distrust of the police.
posted by benito.strauss at 11:22 PM on April 21, 2013 [1 favorite]


And yet, in that video posted above, it looks a lot less like "Oh hello there sir, mind if we take a look to make sure you haven't been house invaded by any guys with guns." and more like "You! Out of the house! Get your hands up! HANDS UP!" which looks nothing like the courteous, we are here to help attitude I've been reading about, and utterly terrifying.
posted by Kaleidoscope at 11:41 PM on April 21, 2013 [9 favorites]


When people are put under curfew it's a big deal. When people are evicted or have their property commandeered, it's a big deal. The exigent circumstances may have justified the authorities' actions, but they didn't necessarily do so. It's important to scrutinise events like these and identify any mistakes before they become precedents.
posted by Joe in Australia at 11:44 PM on April 21, 2013 [13 favorites]


there certainly are places in America where I understand distrust of the police

Of course. But can you please name the place where the cops are on the verge of turning against their friends and family to become mindless robot warriors for Obama? There's a huge distinction between everyday police corruption and black helicopterism.
posted by Camofrog at 11:47 PM on April 21, 2013


Nangar: Those were questions. I at least hope you understand that's how you coming across, Skygazer.

I wish you could engage in this conversation without being so fucking insulting, but I'm not sure how you could engage with people you consider "sheep". Maybe entertain the idea that we might not all actually be complete fucking idiots who will respond to nothing other than hyperbole and name calling because that's all you think any of us are capable responding to? But I don't think that's possible.


I never once have used the word "sheep" in this thread or any other fucking thread, to refer to Mefites. Ever. And you've lost me on where exactly I've been so "fucking insulting." I've been repeatedly told that I'm wrong, and "ideologically blinded," or that "I have no idea what I'm talking about" and had my comments repeatedly removed for even speaking back to abusive people and if I sound pissed it's because there's a feeling of some vindication now that the full picture is beginning to come together.
posted by Skygazer at 11:49 PM on April 21, 2013 [3 favorites]


Kaleidoscope: "And yet, in that video posted above, it looks a lot less like "Oh hello there sir, mind if we take a look to make sure you haven't been house invaded by any guys with guns." and more like "You! Out of the house! Get your hands up! HANDS UP!" which looks nothing like the courteous, we are here to help attitude I've been reading about, and utterly terrifying."

Maybe that's also, as benito.strauss points out, dependent on the quality of police relations. I live in Japan, where police relations are excellent (though, personally, I think the police are useless knobs). Nothing like this is even imaginable. However, if some sort of terrorist event in Tokyo were to prompt door to door "come out with your hands up" police investigations, like the one in the video, I wouldn't find it utterly terrifying. If it just happened out of the blue one day, then, yeah, totally terrifying ("Omigod what the hell is going on?!?!"). But if it were after some big event here, I'd just put my hands up, keep em up, and wait on the kerb until the police had checked that the house was clear.

So I can't say for sure, but I'm going to posit that whether or not the content of that video is utterly terrifying probably rests quite a bit on whether you're already terrified of the police.
posted by Bugbread at 11:52 PM on April 21, 2013 [1 favorite]


When people are put under curfew it's a big deal.

Nobody in Boston was put under curfew.
posted by KathrynT at 11:54 PM on April 21, 2013 [4 favorites]


Skygazer: "I never once have used the word "sheep" in this thread or any other fucking thread, to refer to Mefites."

You said, "The lockdown was a fucking insane thing that I can't even believe how unquestioningly it was put in place and the citizenry turned into docile cowering sheep afraid to leave their homes" in a thread where multiple MeFites had explicitly discussed how they stayed in their homes in response to a request by the police.
posted by Bugbread at 11:54 PM on April 21, 2013 [22 favorites]


Maybe the most mind blowing bit of cognitive dissonance around this whole thing was the cell phone 'ban'. On one hand, we have police variously saying don't use your cell phone because it might accidentally set off a bomb, or don't use your cell phone because we'll assume you are trying to set off a bomb and blow your fucking head off. At the very same time law enforcement were sending push 911 calls to every cell phone in the service area, a thing which was very likely to actually set off any cell phone triggered bomb in the area.

Obviously the truth is simply that police don't like cell phones because of cell phone cameras. Police don't like to be held accountable for their actions. It is an ugly reality, but there it is.


Anyway, the fundamentals of this brief period of police take over do seem sound enough to me. The issue is with how this stuff is executed whenever police see an opportunity to assert their authority on a situation. Why were cops pointing guns at random people? Why were cops violently taking down reporters? The answer, of course, is that is how they are trained... Ugly reality.
posted by Chuckles at 12:05 AM on April 22, 2013 [5 favorites]


I wasn't talking about the people here, BugBread. But not my proudest moment anyhow. Point taken.
posted by Skygazer at 12:06 AM on April 22, 2013


Chuckles: “Maybe the most mind blowing bit of cognitive dissonance around this whole thing was the cell phone 'ban'.”

Wait, there was a cell phone ban? I don't remember that happening at all. The closest thing I can remember is the police scanner asking police officers not to use their cell phones in order to avoid detonating bombs; but that was never even a request made to the public, was it?

I mean, there's been a certain amount of confusion about cell phones throughout this – I remember the day of the bombing there was about an hour there when every news source was reporting that the authorities had "shut down" the cell service in Boston, but then it turned out no such thing had occurred. So I'm just trying to sort out what actually happened, really.
posted by koeselitz at 12:14 AM on April 22, 2013


Chuckles: "Obviously the truth is simply that police don't like cell phones because of cell phone cameras."

I was listening to the police scanner when that went out, and it was pretty clear that the primary concern was actually blowing up devices (the order went out way before there were searches, etc.). Yes, police often dislike cell phone cameras, and can often be unconstitutional dicks, taking cameras away, etc., but just because something is often true doesn't mean it's always true, and this is one of the examples. For example, they were telling reporters to turn off their phones, but not telling them to turn off their cameras.
posted by Bugbread at 12:14 AM on April 22, 2013


Sorry, correction: at the point I remember, they were not telling reporters to turn off their phones, they were asking them to. I don't know if they ever told them to.
posted by Bugbread at 12:15 AM on April 22, 2013


Bugbread: “Sorry, correction: at the point I remember, they were not telling reporters to turn off their phones, they were asking them to. I don't know if they ever told them to.”

I still don't understand at all. The police used the police radio to ask reporters to turn off their phones?
posted by koeselitz at 12:17 AM on April 22, 2013


(Oh, it sounds like that was a different situation entirely. Sorry.)
posted by koeselitz at 12:18 AM on April 22, 2013


Yeah, sorry, on the police scanner, if memory serves me, one police asked "Is there any possibility our phones could set off a device", and then after a little bit there was a response that "Yeah, they say that's possible. You should turn off your phones in order to avoid possibly setting off a device." Then, later on someone in the MetaFilter chat who was getting info from other sources mentioned something about someone in the media saying they were encouraged to turn off their phones because it might set off a device.
posted by Bugbread at 12:31 AM on April 22, 2013


Here's a longer version of that house raid video, though I have no idea if it's from the original uploader (we need something like TinEye, but for video, and searchable by newest/oldest). There's another 6 or 7 minutes on the end of it that show the police dispersing, the residents returning, some of the neighbors venturing out briefly... and somebody hugs the dog! I'm not sure it tells us much more, but it does look like the cops don't go to the very next house (I don't think), or the house across the street, as they would if it were a systematic house-by-house thing, but I have no idea. That was really weird.


I wonder how many people will get UboRoivas's reference. That feels like a million years ago, another age.

Me, I do! I'm this many years old *holds up a million fingers*

posted by taz at 12:45 AM on April 22, 2013 [6 favorites]


Bugbread: However, if some sort of terrorist event in Tokyo were to prompt door to door "come out with your hands up" police investigations, like the one in the video, I wouldn't find it utterly terrifying. If it just happened out of the blue one day, then, yeah, totally terrifying ("Omigod what the hell is going on?!?!"). But if it were after some big event here, I'd just put my hands up, keep em up, and wait on the kerb until the police had checked that the house was clear.

Well, sure, I don't disagree. But the guy in the video was coming out, he had his arms up already, and he was forcibly pulled through his door, his arms were shoved higher. He was already obeying - just not fast enough, or something.

I haven't ever been in that sort of situation, I have no idea what it feels like, or what I would do or think. I really don't. It surprised me, though. I don't think it's right for police to treat everyone like a criminal, especially when they know who they were looking for (and what he looked like: big nose, covered in blood) and when the citizen they were shouting at was complying (and there were five? six? heavily armed officers all poised to shoot a bad guy).

So I can't say for sure, but I'm going to posit that whether or not the content of that video is utterly terrifying probably rests quite a bit on whether you're already terrified of the police.

Well actually, no, I'm not terrified of the police. I do think they frequently overstep their authority, and I think they are very often heavy handed in how they interact with citizens. I read frequent stories about US police tasering (and killing!) people who they don't feel comply with orders quickly enough, or shooting family pets and shooting completely innocent, not fast enough non criminals due to faulty intelligence. I don't think it's unreasonable to question whether something is proportional and safe and reasonable.
posted by Kaleidoscope at 12:50 AM on April 22, 2013 [3 favorites]


I wish I had written about a knock at the door, and "Imagine my surprise to see two burly SWAT officers, dressed in nothing but full combat fatigues & body armour!"
posted by UbuRoivas at 12:53 AM on April 22, 2013 [2 favorites]


>What am I missing?

A clear understanding of the fourth amendment.

>What is the proper police response to this situation?

I am not sure. I do think, though, that ignoring the bill of rights every time there is a terrorist attack is problematic at best. It begins to normalize the idea that our civil rights are not inalienable, and subject to the whims of police and elected officials.
posted by AElfwine Evenstar at 1:09 AM on April 22, 2013 [12 favorites]


AElfwine Evenstar: "A clear understanding of the fourth amendment."

Wikipedia reminds me that that's the unlawful search and seizure one, requiring warrants. I'm not quite sure how you can tell from the video that they didn't have a warrant or probable cause. So, in addition to not having a clear understanding of the fourth amendment (which I will totally admit to), what information am I missing that makes it clear that the video shows a violation of the fourth amendment?
posted by Bugbread at 1:24 AM on April 22, 2013 [2 favorites]


AElfwine Evenstar: “A clear understanding of the fourth amendment... I do think, though, that ignoring the bill of rights every time there is a terrorist attack is problematic at best. It begins to normalize the idea that our civil rights are not inalienable, and subject to the whims of police and elected officials.”

This is important: exactly how do you believe the fourth amendment was violated? The circumstances we're talking about are pretty much textbook exigent circumstances. Specifically, it seems to me that this is clear-cut because was not justified simply by the concern that evidence might be destroyed, but by the actual danger citizens might well have been in if a man with improvised bombs and an explosive vest were hiding in their home.

Are you saying you believe that the caselaw surrounding exigent circumstances is wrong, or are you saying that these really weren't exigent circumstances at all?
posted by koeselitz at 1:26 AM on April 22, 2013 [1 favorite]


Kaleidoscope: “Well, sure, I don't disagree. But the guy in the video was coming out, he had his arms up already, and he was forcibly pulled through his door, his arms were shoved higher. He was already obeying - just not fast enough, or something.”

It seems as though the most likely explanation is that the officer saw movement behind the guy and didn't know what it was, and wanted to get him out of the way.
posted by koeselitz at 1:30 AM on April 22, 2013


It begins to normalize the idea that our civil rights are not inalienable, and subject to the whims of police and elected officials.

Not while people reason they relinquish these rights, momentarily, for some greater good. People happy to comply are just that: happy to comply. The people not one bit happy to comply feel the force.

It's important to scrutinise events like these and identify any mistakes before they become precedents.

Bit late. At the end of the day a precedent has been set. Without-warrant home searches went ahead where anyone daring to exercise (even) his or her 2nd amendment right would most certainly have come off 2nd best. Resistance was futile. 'Inalienable rights' is now demonstrably a nonsense. Then I feel certain the strategic response was, far from being spontaneous, an already code named strategy ... something like "The horse has bolted". The response forces seemed more than au fait with role expectations.

Where are the people who on board with this idea?

For that matter, where are the police who cannot reconcile their training (no doubt mindful of inalienable rights) with carrying out their recent orders to a T? It would be interesting to hear from police who were not happy with orders and unable to conscientiously object.

No matter who you are compliance is "just obeying orders".
posted by de at 1:31 AM on April 22, 2013 [5 favorites]


de: "Without-warrant home searches went ahead where anyone daring to exercise (even) his or her 2nd amendment right would most certainly have come off 2nd best."

??? The second amendment says you can own handguns, right? Are you saying that the police didn't search a single house where owners had handguns? Because if the police searched a home, and the owner owned a handgun, then the police were searching a house while the owner exercised their 2nd amendment. Or are you using "exercise 2nd amendment rights" as some sort of code for "shooting policemen"?
posted by Bugbread at 1:42 AM on April 22, 2013 [1 favorite]


At the end of the day a precedent has been set. Without-warrant home searches went ahead where anyone daring to exercise (even) his or her 2nd amendment right would most certainly have come off 2nd best. Resistance was futile. 'Inalienable rights' is now demonstrably a nonsense.

This is exactly what Justice Anthony Kennedy referred to in the majority opinion in Boumediene v. Bush.

The laws and Constitution are designed to survive, and remain in force, in extraordinary times.

That didn't seem to happen here.
posted by Purposeful Grimace at 1:44 AM on April 22, 2013 [5 favorites]


"So I can't say for sure, but I'm going to posit that whether or not the content of that video is utterly terrifying probably rests quite a bit on whether you're already terrified of the police."

I've talked about this before, and I'm absolutely certain that there are mefites who have far, far experience as being a member of a less privileged group in some neighborhood where the police are unfriendly, but it was a formative experience for me in my twenties when was in a situation where the police acted completely differently than they had acted all my previous life.

And that previous life had included leading the police on a high-speed car chase when I was sixteen and being arrested. Being arrested later (outstanding traffic ticket). And lots and lots and lots of other run-ins with the police when I was a teen who used to get drunk with friends and drive around at high-speed and get into various kinds of trouble. All those interactions, including when they had just finally stopped me at a road-block and had their hands on their guns and crouched behind their car doors as they ordered me out of my stopped car, were very professional and civil and often quite, well, kind. I'm white, male, well-spoken, and one of the unfortunate facts of my early life was that authority figures always gave me the benefit of the doubt and lax punishment, which taught me some wrong lessons.

But I was at a party in the barrio when I was about twenty-five where I was, as far as I could tell, the only non-hispanic. There was some kind of fight, and someone was injured with a knife and they went to the hospital. Which, to be fair, if that's what drew the police there provides some reason for them to be on-edge. Still, when they arrived, it was your standard very large party with at least a hundred people, loud music, drinking, and when the police arrived they were completely different than I had ever experienced. They pushed their way in, they were not the least calm and respectful to anyone, they didn't try to convince anyone to do anything reasonably, they just threw their weight around and threatened people. Got in people's faces. It was a little bit scary, but I (given my privilege and prior experience) didn't really have the sense to be afraid or worried and I argued with them a bit. They didn't arrest me, they didn't arrest anyone, though they sure as hell made it seem like they were about to.

Anyway, the point is that it made me realize that the police I had always seen is not necessarily the version of the police that everyone else sees. I think it was the beginning of my awareness of privilege outside of the abstract.

A few years later I had an experience with, um, legal stuff that just reinforced my sense that while the whole system is a machine and doesn't look anything like what we see on television, it is a machine that is a whole helluva lot nicer to people like me than to people who aren't like me. I've had strong opinions on the subject ever since.

All that to say, I don't think you intended this, but there's a sense in that view of the video that for many people would take as "those people deserve to be afraid of the police". Or, you know, that the people who are afraid of the police have reasons to be afraid of the police, because they're probably troublemakers or something. This is the attitude of most people of privilege about the police and law enforcement. And why not? Their (our) experience is usually pretty good. The police are the good guys, helpful and keeping us safe and all that. Except that there's huge segments of the population that they automatically classify as "probably criminals" and they treat those folk much, much differently. And those folk rightly will have a different view of such things, even when they are terrified of bombing terrorists and naturally want the police to stop them.
posted by Ivan Fyodorovich at 1:47 AM on April 22, 2013 [18 favorites]


Purposeful Grimace: “This is exactly what Justice Anthony Kennedy referred to in the majority opinion in Boumediene v. Bush. ‘The laws and Constitution are designed to survive, and remain in force, in extraordinary times.’ That didn't seem to happen here.”

Nonsense. This is not what Anthony Kennedy was talking about, because Anthony Kennedy joined with the majority on this decision in 2006 making it clear that "police may enter a home without a warrant when they have an objectively reasonable basis for believing that an occupant is seriously injured or imminently threatened with such injury."

The laws and the Constitution did survive. The police didn't do anything unconstitutional. It'd be interesting to hear someone argue that they did, but thus far we've just seen bare, apparently uninformed assertions.
posted by koeselitz at 1:53 AM on April 22, 2013 [1 favorite]


This is important: exactly how do you believe the fourth amendment was violated? The circumstances we're talking about are pretty much textbook exigent circumstances.

IANAL, but I understand that "exigent circumstances" require probable cause. The officers did not have probable cause to believe that Tsarnaev was inside any one house or even within all of the houses collectively.1 Also, you can't tell me that they couldn't have gotten a warrant to search the houses: this thing went on for hours.

1) Not that being "somewhere in any one of the neighbourhood houses" would amount to probable cause, anyway.
posted by Joe in Australia at 1:58 AM on April 22, 2013 [2 favorites]


Oh, I get it now. It's speculation when I see what looks like an illegal search being conducted but it's straight up fact when you can tell that the occupant is seriously injured or imminently threatened with such injury.

Yeesh.
posted by Purposeful Grimace at 1:58 AM on April 22, 2013 [1 favorite]


Are you saying you believe that the caselaw surrounding exigent circumstances is wrong, or are you saying that these really weren't exigent circumstances at all?

Both. Exigent circumstances is legalese for we can fuck with you anytime we want. Just because something is legal doesn't make it moral or correct. Given the nature of the American legal system I am fairly dubious it is a good guide to what is moral and correct. What were the exigent circumstances? Did they have a tip that the bomber was in the houses being searched? Or did officials just say fuck it we can search them all rubber stamp the warrants? I don't know but it will be interesting to see how it all actually went down. I guess I should say that maybe there were exigent circumstances for all the cases we saw. I would be interested in how many houses were searched, and what the "circumstances" were that led to each search.

'Inalienable rights' is now demonstrably a nonsense.

So you don't have an inalienable right to life?

The police didn't do anything unconstitutional.

Speaking of bare, uninformed assertions...

All the facts are not in so assuming either way is kinda problematic at this point. I will bow out, I guess, until we have a more substantive account of how this all went down.
posted by AElfwine Evenstar at 1:59 AM on April 22, 2013


Ivan Fyodorovich: "Or, you know, that the people who are afraid of the police have reasons to be afraid of the police, because they're probably troublemakers or something."

I agree that some people may mean that when they say it depends how scared you already are of the police, but I'm not speaking for everyone who might make that argument, I'm just speaking for myself, and that's not what I meant.

As far as privilege, yes. I'm in total agreement with you.

Plus, in my case, I was thinking more about location: how people have described the police in Boston versus the police in LA, and thinking about the police here in Japan, and realizing that the quality of police apparently varies very widely from place to place. I certainly don't think that the only people who are afraid of the LAPD are people who deserve to be afraid, nor do I think that the fact that the police are really non-intimidating here in Japan means that all Japanese people are saints. I just thought that, perhaps, the people who found the video clearly terrifying were from cities with really high levels of police abuse (LAPD pops to mind immediately, but they're far from the only ones), while folks who found it less obviously terrifying perhaps came from places where the police are less prone to abuse and general dickishness.
posted by Bugbread at 2:03 AM on April 22, 2013


'Inalienable rights' is now demonstrably a nonsense.

So you don't have an inalienable right to life?


I live life amid news of tragedies daily and get the distinct impression I am expendable. We design and build killing machines, don't we?
posted by de at 2:05 AM on April 22, 2013


"I just thought that, perhaps, the people who found the video clearly terrifying were from cities with really high levels of police abuse (LAPD pops to mind immediately, but they're far from the only ones), while folks who found it less obviously terrifying perhaps came from places where the police are less prone to abuse and general dickishness."

I'm pretty sure that's true. But I have a strong intuition that the more influential variable is demographic within each of those areas.
posted by Ivan Fyodorovich at 2:08 AM on April 22, 2013 [1 favorite]


No Bugbread, I imagined anyone opening his door, armed, and refusing un-warranted house search wouldn't have been the brightest on the block.
posted by de at 2:09 AM on April 22, 2013


Ivan Fyodorovich: "I'm pretty sure that's true. But I have a strong intuition that the more influential variable is demographic within each of those areas."

Absolutely.
posted by Bugbread at 2:12 AM on April 22, 2013


AElfwine Evenstar: “Exigent circumstances is legalese for we can fuck with you anytime we want. Just because something is legal doesn't make it moral or correct. Given the nature of the American legal system I am fairly dubious it is a good guide to what is moral and correct.”

If you think that the Supreme Court is a corrupt institution – and I guess I'm not saying it's not – it would seem difficult to believe that American Democracy is even a good idea.

“All the facts are not in so assuming either way is kinda problematic at this point.”

Yeah, this is a very good point. Actually, I'm starting to think they may well have had knock-and-announce warrants. I guess it's not too hard to call those in.
posted by koeselitz at 2:13 AM on April 22, 2013


Purposeful Grimace: “Oh, I get it now. It's speculation when I see what looks like an illegal search being conducted but it's straight up fact when you can tell that the occupant is seriously injured or imminently threatened with such injury. Yeesh.”

I was just trying to give an argument making it clear that this is not some simple case where the Constitution has obviously been violated, which is how you were talking. This isn't really the time for pontifical quotations about how, in an imminent crisis, the authorities overstepped their bounds. I would suggest that we first try to figure out whether they actually violated the constitution or not. And I would furthermore suggest that the United States isn't a wasteland of undrawn lines; it's a place where we have carefully built up precedent and spent a long time contemplating how the Constitution is applied. Unlike others, I guess, I have some faith in that process.
posted by koeselitz at 2:20 AM on April 22, 2013 [2 favorites]


Skygazer, you do realize that the T shuts down with some frequency for inclement weather, right?

And that when the T shuts down, businesses shut down, right?

And that being holed up inside our homes for a day or two at a time --- sometime three or four in the case of severe weather or weather warnings --- is a common place course of action in this area of the country, right? So, you know --- maybe we should all be suing the T and our local governments for issuing warnings several times a year for violating our civil liberties by warning us about weather and advising in very many of the same terms that were used this week to STAY WHERE YOU ARE IF YOU DON'T HAVE TO GO ANYWHERE.

You do realize that people could have gone outside had they wanted to but the vast majority of people DIDN'T WANT TO DIE and CHOSE very specifically not to leave where they were because of that.

There have also been a couple of people here who posted about going out when the shelter-in-place was in effect and how NOTHING AT ALL happened to them. And they made that decision for themselves, and that's really the point.

Also, the police weren't conducting searches against the will of the people. They were doing, essentially, welfare checks and getting very clear permission to search or not. Some people refused. Nothing happened to them for refusing. You COULD have a point about the police thing. You COULD. But you're so wrapped up in PROVING PEOPLE WHO LIVE IN THE BOSTON AREA WRONG that we're not all that inclined to listen to you any more, and you really don't seem to have a clue about how this area of the country works both geographically and climate-wise.

Write a letter to the editor at the NYT or the Boston Glob or whatever. Your points have been stated here very clearly. We get it. We disagree with you. Move on.
posted by zizzle at 3:08 AM on April 22, 2013 [18 favorites]


Also, you should note that the ACLU was very quick to issue a statement about not reading the suspect his rights and being concerned about that.

The have said nothing about how the police acted to get the suspect in custody.
posted by zizzle at 3:23 AM on April 22, 2013 [2 favorites]


A couple of points to expand a little bit more on what zizzle said.

Earlier this year there was a big storm that shut down the city. It was several feet of snow, one of the top ten amounts we've ever had. The roads were shut and the governor specifically warned that people could be arrested for driving. There was no such warning about going outside this time.

In fact, at least in Brookline, going outside wasn't a problem at all. I live across from a park, and throughout the day there were often one or two people in the park, sometimes with dogs. By mid afternoon people were playing ball in the park. No one got arrested. No one got sent home by the police.
posted by alms at 3:24 AM on April 22, 2013 [1 favorite]


being holed up inside our homes for a day or two at a time --- sometime three or four in the case of severe weather or weather warnings --- is a common place course of action in this area of the country, right?

Is that commonplace as in 'happens a handful of times per year'? Or even dozens? That sounds incredibly shitty; I'm amazed sometimes at the harsh climates that people willingly endure. If Boston's like that, Canada must be close to uninhabitable.
posted by UbuRoivas at 3:26 AM on April 22, 2013 [1 favorite]


And schools weren't shut down because schools were for the most part on April Vacation.

Colleges and universities complied on the closing in an effort to help protect their students and staff. And not all of them at that.
posted by zizzle at 3:26 AM on April 22, 2013 [1 favorite]


Is that commonplace as in 'happens a handful of times per year'? Or even dozens?

We have entire winters with ne'er a snowflake and entire winters spent in blizzard conditions.

This past year we had Sandy that shut things down for two to three days (but part of that was over a weekend anyway), a couple of regular snow storms, and then Nemo.

So I think all told, it was about 5 days off from school for most area school with some of those crossing a weekend. So, not as detrimental as other years, and Sandy was far more of a warning because it was unclear until hours before what the storm was going to do --- so those were preparedness orders for sure.

Outside of Sandy, this past year was a version of a pretty typical winter here.
posted by zizzle at 3:31 AM on April 22, 2013 [2 favorites]


Also, the police weren't conducting searches against the will of the people. They were doing, essentially, welfare checks and getting very clear permission to search or not. Some people refused. Nothing happened to them for refusing.

Oh, a community service. Strange. Was there a safeword?
posted by de at 3:36 AM on April 22, 2013


Yes, it was, "No you don't have permission to enter my house," at which point the police asked everyone in the house to come to the door so they could make sure everyone was safe and the they moved on without entering the house, as noted up thread.
posted by Elementary Penguin at 3:39 AM on April 22, 2013 [4 favorites]


I don't think safeword means what you think it means.
posted by de at 3:44 AM on April 22, 2013


de: "I don't think safeword means what you think it means."

I know what safeword means, and it doesn't apply in any way to this situation. If you want to get cute with a word and use it in a nonsensical manner, extend the same courtesy to other people to also use it in a cute and nonsensical manner. Now, if you'll pardon me, time to safeword some dinner.
posted by Bugbread at 4:00 AM on April 22, 2013 [10 favorites]


I dunno, I would consider making sure I wasn't being held hostage by terrorists at least fitting some broad definitions of community service. Unironically.

Volokh Conspiracy -- a site which admittedly leans right, but includes actual practicing constitutional lawyers and academics -- discussed the house-to-house searches the other day, noting the paucity of actual case law in the matter, but pointing out there wouldn't tend to be much anyway for both practical (rarity of instances) and standing (ability of affected persons to raise the issue) reasons. In fact, the second paragraph of the blog post is quite interesting, as it notes that essentially since nobody in the homes was arrested or charged with a crime (presumption at this point, haven't heard that anyone was), they would not have standing to raise the issue as a constitutional protection in any criminal proceeding -- which is what the Fourth is intended for. Anyone who believes their rights were violated or who had property damaged would have to pursue that in some other venue, e.g. a loss claim against the city/PD or a civil lawsuit.

The post does not continue in this vein, but I'll just say that I know of some such lawsuits where people have suffered injury or at least indignity, usually the horrible worst-case-scenario situation of a mistaken identity or mistaken address on a warrant. I don't know of any I've ever heard of (but then I don't follow any of this closely, although I have occasionally taken the time to read Supreme Court decisions from start to finish) where they had probable cause/exigent circumstances as a rationale for searching a house and then releasing the persons where such would have led to a lawsuit and established some case law regarding the constitutionality of the matter. Normally, as Kerr indicates, it is the suspect who would be raising the matter in court.

Maybe there's an angle here where the awful phenomenon of SWATting comes into play. Someone, either a celebrity for the lulz or a person who is the victim of a harassment or petty revenge campaign, gets a SWAT response to their house based on a spoofed 911 call. No case law yet so far as I know. Effectively there's a broad similarity here -- an extreme version of a door knock safety check -- where the victim is not in fact a criminal suspect and is not in a trial process where the Fourth would come into play.

If you want my money down, it's down for IF there is any such case brought into the courts anytime soon, it will broaden the exigent circumstances exemption rather than tighten it.

Basically the idea behind the Fourth, or at least the constitutional mechanism on which it's built, is that it protects you from the end result of a prosecution; it doesn't protect you, so to speak, if you're the potential victim of a crime rather than the perpetrator, because that would be backwards.
posted by dhartung at 4:01 AM on April 22, 2013 [8 favorites]


Video of the kinds of house raids the police teams were making in Watertown.

Do they include a video of the officer bringing a gallon of milk to the family who was about to go out and get some for their kid?
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 4:07 AM on April 22, 2013 [9 favorites]


Door-to-door searches for dangerous fugitives in neighborhoods cordoned by the police are a thing. It's neither new nor a danger to our civil liberties.
posted by Slap*Happy at 4:31 AM on April 22, 2013 [5 favorites]


Also, the police weren't conducting searches against the will of the people. They were doing, essentially, welfare checks and getting very clear permission to search or not. Some people refused. Nothing happened to them for refusing.

Oh, a community service. Strange. Was there a safeword?


Are you seriously claiming that searching for the bomber was not a community service?
posted by Area Man at 4:49 AM on April 22, 2013 [5 favorites]


I'd like to point something out about the Uncle's statement. He didn't say "those boys are losers." He was asked why they might have done this and he responded, "because they're losers." He was pretty clearly (to me, anyway) stating that if they did this, it's because they're losers rather than because of Islam, or Chechnya, or any other cause. I think he would have said the same thing about anyone suspected of doing it - because planting bombs is a loser thing to do. He hadn't seen his nephews in years and didn't have much to say at all about what they were like.
posted by Dojie at 5:05 AM on April 22, 2013 [1 favorite]




He was pretty clearly (to me, anyway) stating that if they did this, it's because they're losers rather than because of Islam, or Chechnya, or any other cause.

A report in the Wall Street Journal today adds a bit to this point [might be paywalled]. I'm not sure the two things are mutually exclusive.
In an interview Sunday, the suspects' uncle, Ruslan Tsarni, lamented the 2011 FBI interview as a missed opportunity, saying he would have told the FBI about his nephew's extreme views if asked.

Mr. Tsarni, who lives in Montgomery County, Md., said he spoke with Tamerlan Tsarnaev and was "shocked" by the "radical crap" he heard—though two days earlier he had said in an interview that his nephews weren't ideologically motivated, but "losers" who didn't adjust to American life.
posted by BobbyVan at 5:18 AM on April 22, 2013


Video of the kinds of house raids the police teams were making in Watertown.

Yeah, so I'd very clearly like to say that video could certainly be a real and true thing that happened but the uploader's history of uploads reaks of a conspiracy theorist with a very clear agenda. I know this person most likely didn't take the video and again, not saying it's not real, but here are some choice selections from that account:

-- Oklahoma City conspiracy
-- Police denied prior knowledge of threat to Boston Marathon, but swarmed race with bomb-sniffing dogs
-- People Petition to Confiscate Guns From Tea Party Supporters and Repeal the Second Amendment

If I was trying to make a point here, I wouldn't use videos from some guy (and I say some guy because you cannot verify where exactly that video came from) that's clearly into proving a point that the cops are all out to get us. More specifically, if I was gonna use THIS video to prove a point...well, I wouldn't. I'd wait around for a verified video.

Call me a sheeple. Whatever. I'd just prefer some verifiable facts to add to my argument instead of trusting rambone5 (who thinks gun control leads to more violence, an idea not backed up by facts, by the way) to make my arguments for me.
posted by youandiandaflame at 5:19 AM on April 22, 2013 [6 favorites]


Listening to NPR at the moment and they're saying Dzhokhar has a tube down his throat, which isn't helping on the ability to talk front. Again, they're being careful to point out that no one is saying exactly what caused his "neck injury," i.e. whether it occurred in the gun fire exchange at the boat or attempted suicide.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 5:45 AM on April 22, 2013


I haven't ever been in that sort of situation, I have no idea what it feels like, or what I would do or think. I really don't. It surprised me, though. I don't think it's right for police to treat everyone like a criminal, especially when they know who they were looking for (and what he looked like: big nose, covered in blood) and when the citizen they were shouting at was complying (and there were five? six? heavily armed officers all poised to shoot a bad guy).

As I said above, the things we don't know are (a) how long the police were knocking and waiting at the door before the video begins, and (b) whether they had a tip that led them to suspect this house was harboring the fugitive. The outward appearances point to the idea that (b) is the case.

Did you notice that they pat everyone down after they leave the house, and send them half a block away to wait? Also, the guy with the dog is in a dark gray hoodie that was part of the very brief description of Tsarnaev the public was given). Some conversation about 6:10 indicates that there is a side door open and someone seems to be walking from this house to another house. The police are certainly acting like they are prepared for trouble, and it is clearly concerning them that the people in this house are a lot slower to respond than others. It looks to me as though they thought something could really be up here.

The people return, they are not arrested. Other neighbors were watching (one might have even called in a tip on that house) as evideced by the guys who come out of the house next door and mill about at the end.

That was also not the regular house-to-house team, but a special team, who walked all the way down the street without visiting any other houses and left the area. That could indicate that they were called to that address specifically for some reason or other, and that this was not the usual search that we see on all the other videos.

It's just not enough information. It also doesn't seem to have led to anything. But again, if there are consequences for which they have the kind of standing dhartung described, they have the same recourse to law and media that we all do.

They were doing, essentially, welfare checks and getting very clear permission to search or not. Some people refused. Nothing happened to them for refusing.

That was my next question, whether anyone refused, and I had forgotten that this was already spoken of. So you could refuse.

Slate: Can the Police Search My Home for a Bomber? Why the the door-to-door Manhunt for Dzhokhar Tsarnaev Doesn’t Violate the Constitution.
posted by Miko at 5:48 AM on April 22, 2013


Report: Bomb suspects' carjack victim spared because he wasn't American
“He also told the police investigators after this episode, when they finally got to him — he is the one who called 911 — that they let him out of the car and didn’t kill him because he wasn’t an American,” Williams said.

Williams said NBC had exchanged e-mails with the victim, who described the suspects as “brutal but cautious.” He said the victims didn’t want to appear on camera.

Meanwhile, a senior United States official told The New York Times that the Tsarnaev brothers may have been headed to New York City in the Mercedes-Benz SUV they hijacked Thursday, although it’s not clear if they planned on further attacks there.

Williams said on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” that the carjacking victim had heard the suspects - who were speaking in a foreign language - use the word “Manhattan.”
posted by BobbyVan at 5:55 AM on April 22, 2013 [2 favorites]


Dueling editorials from the New York Times and Wall Street Journal today, on whether authorities should treat Dzhokhar Tsarnaev as an "enemy combatant."
posted by BobbyVan at 6:07 AM on April 22, 2013


I wasn't talking about the people here, BugBread. But not my proudest moment anyhow. Point taken.

It's amazing to me how many times you've said something about what happened, been told how you're wrong about what happened by people who actually lived through it, repeated it, been told again how you're wrong (with specific examples) and then said "oh but that's not what I meant, I meant this other thing.
posted by bowmaniac at 6:29 AM on April 22, 2013 [5 favorites]


Zizzle: Write a letter to the editor at the NYT or the Boston Glob or whatever. Your points have been stated here very clearly. We get it. We disagree with you. Move on.

I'm jumping in this thread now, but what's with the condescending push against Skygazer et. al? I don't disagree. I don't think we should move on necessarily. Most importantly, there is no "We" at Metafilter. To assume so is to argue in the most condescending and horrifying way against discourse and discussion possible; the kind that blocks out differing arguments by proclaiming to speak in the name of "all". It's absolutely disgusting, so cut it out.

--

That having said. In my opinion, these two things are simultaneously true:

1) The search for Dzhokar was in the interest of public safety, since at the time, Dzhokar's status, his involvment with other possible groups, his capabilities, etc. etc. were unclear.

2) An effectively non-optional blanket door-to-door house search without warrant violates everyone's rights.

And so the debate as usual is between security and liberty, safety and rights. From a practical level, what they're doing is right. From a rights and ideological level, what they're doing is wrong. Is this not clear to everyone? I mean, what's the boundary between this and illegal torture? It's a similar underlying dynamic. Watertown: "We're searching you for your safety, since one of your neighbors may be harboring a terrorist." Waterboarding: "We're coercing you for your safety, since one of your countrymen may be hiding information."

I don't even have to go that far. Why is it that the TSA and security procedures -- an "entirely voluntary" procedure that you sign up for when you decide to fly -- gets everyone all worked up about rights and privacy here at MetaFilter, yet a mandatory door-to-door invasive search of someone's private home is fair game? Is it because Boston was undergoing 'exigent circumstances', or in a "state of exception"after the Boston Marathon bombings to be? Sure, I agree. But can I point out that the USA has been in a "state of emergency" since 2001? So shouldn't the TSA searches be entirely reasonable and acceptable as well?

I am not saying that the alternative is to proceed as if nothing else as happened, that we will all be safe no matter what. But it's clearly ignorant and idiotic to not view mandatory door-to-door searches as a temporary sacrifice of liberties for the sake of security. The problem is that this sacrifice has a long and varied history of being the vehicle for increased governmental power and control. And the attitude of most of the commenters in this thread is not one of "Yes, this is very tricky and problematic, but I ultimately think that the searches were necessary." It's more of a "What harm does a little search do if you're innocent? It's for your own good anyways." This, to me, is the most sinister.
posted by suedehead at 6:29 AM on April 22, 2013 [18 favorites]


Dueling editorials from the New York Times and Wall Street Journal today, on whether authorities should treat Dzhokhar Tsarnaev as an "enemy combatant."

The idea that this would even be a point of discussion is surreal to me. The debate point is literally "should we respect the rule of constitutional law or not?"
posted by jaduncan at 6:36 AM on April 22, 2013 [14 favorites]


*The house arrests were not exactly 'mandatory', but universally enforced in effect, the same way that it is 'non-mandatory' to go through backscatter machines at the airport, since you can technically choose the more time-consuming pat-down.
posted by suedehead at 6:36 AM on April 22, 2013


I'm jumping in this thread now, but what's with the condescending push against Skygazer et. al?

It doesn't appear at those he's listening, as he continues to argue theoretical points against people who lived though the event.

2) An effectively non-optional blanket door-to-door house search without warrant violates everyone's rights.

Yeah, people have repeatedly stated and linked to stores that didn't occur. Why you're bringing it up again is odd.

...yet a mandatory door-to-door invasive search of someone's private home is fair game?

*sighs*

You do realize it wasn't mandatory, right?
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 6:41 AM on April 22, 2013 [1 favorite]


You say this: ...the condescending push against Skygazer et. al?

And then say this: But it's clearly ignorant and idiotic to not view mandatory door-to-door searches as a temporary sacrifice of liberties for the sake of security.

My bolding. You're pointing out that you think people are being condescending and then go on to imply that you think anyone arguing with skygazer's pov is ignorant and idiotic. Do I have that right?

Look, I've been fully engaged int this fight but to be clear I think most have said or given the impression, at least, that the searches are tricky but necessary. What you've heard is "What harm does a little search do if you're innocent? It's for your own good anyways." I don't think anyone's saying that but I could be reading it wrong, just as I think you are.

I personally do not believe the latter that you've said. I do not believe the latter. I don't think anyone does. At any rate, I'm bowing out of that particular fight. It's circular, it's going nowhere, and at this point it could pretty clearly just be labeled chatter.
posted by youandiandaflame at 6:41 AM on April 22, 2013 [1 favorite]


The longer version of the video, linked by taz, is in a YouTube channel named The Teamstered. I think that is the person who originally uploaded the video to YouTube.
posted by nickyskye at 6:42 AM on April 22, 2013 [2 favorites]


And so the debate as usual is between security and liberty, safety and rights. From a practical level, what they're doing is right. From a rights and ideological level, what they're doing is wrong. Is this not clear to everyone? I mean, what's the boundary between this and illegal torture? It's a similar underlying dynamic.

It's not clear at all to me that what they're doing is wrong from a "rights and ideological level." The right to be free from government intrusion into your home isn't an absolute one, obviously; we let the government come into our homes with warrants, we let them come in when pursuing a dangerous suspect, we let them come if they have a good reason to believe that people inside are in immediate danger. I strongly believe in the Fourth Amendment, but I also think that the searches in Boston, in all likelihood, were fine under the Fourth Amendment, even from an "rights and ideological level."

The comparison to torture is also completely misplaced. What's the boundary? The boundary is that torture causes serious, actual harm that's completely non-comparable to the "harm" of having to spend a day inside or have your stuff rifled through. I'd also point out that torture is categorically ineffective, so the balancing act should be strongly tilted away from torture, even absent considerations of the harm it inflicts.
posted by Bulgaroktonos at 6:42 AM on April 22, 2013 [1 favorite]


> I'm jumping in this thread now, but what's with the condescending push against Skygazer et. al? I don't disagree. I don't think we should move on necessarily. Most importantly, there is no "We" at Metafilter. To assume so is to argue in the most condescending and horrifying way against discourse and discussion possible; the kind that blocks out differing arguments by proclaiming to speak in the name of "all". It's absolutely disgusting, so cut it out.

Well said suedehead and excellent comment expressing the complexities of the situation. Thanks.
posted by nickyskye at 6:51 AM on April 22, 2013 [1 favorite]


The boundary is that torture causes serious, actual harm that's completely non-comparable to the "harm" of having to spend a day inside or have your stuff rifled through.

I'm not quite sure I agree that having your stuff rifled through isn't a concern, from a civil liberties standpoint; I wouldn't be quite as dismissive. however, I do agree that what happened in Watertown on Friday was indeed a special case which is not a Fourth Amendment Violation.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 6:52 AM on April 22, 2013


Slate: Can the Police Search My Home for a Bomber? Why the the door-to-door Manhunt for Dzhokhar Tsarnaev Doesn’t Violate the Constitution.

Yes, they can search for him if they have probable cause to believe he's in there, but the idea that it's constitutional for the police to force their way into every house where they think he might be is just incorrect.
posted by one more dead town's last parade at 6:53 AM on April 22, 2013


Are you seriously claiming that searching for the bomber was not a community service?

No, I'm not. A large group of public servants were engaged in a manhunt. When it came to searching houses in the cordoned war zone (given you acknowledge the difference between a terrorist and a criminal), checking the well-being of the home and hosed was not the priority.

No. Given people could refuse it was a de facto service of sorts. In as much as any war effort is a community service it was a community service, but the delivery was most strange. Manhunt. It was a manhunt; and not at all for the primary purpose of checking the well-being of residents cordoned within the zone.

I said 'strange' because it is most unusual to consider someone decides with freewill when there is a gun pointing at them. That's generally seen as coercive. (There's a prior video where a man and woman vacate a home for searching. His hands are full with a toddler and diapers bag. Her hands are not full and she is reminded (kindly, is my impression) to raise her hands for evacuation ... so that she doesn't get shot?)

How many said "No thank you, not today" to the armed searchers, versus the number who complied? There's the public response which is not necessarily the public opinion.
posted by de at 6:53 AM on April 22, 2013 [9 favorites]


I didn't mean to be dismissive of having your property searched generally, only as compared to torture. Saying is "what's the difference between this an torture" is the silliest kind of slippery slope argument because the differences are pretty apparent.
posted by Bulgaroktonos at 6:54 AM on April 22, 2013


The boundary is that torture causes serious, actual harm that's completely non-comparable to the "harm" of having to spend a day inside or have your stuff rifled through.

Okay, what about being detained? What about a "random" stop-and-frisk that's really harmless, and causes no bodily harm? Do you think that's harmless and non-comparable to torture and thus pretty much okay also?
posted by suedehead at 6:56 AM on April 22, 2013 [1 favorite]


Sorry ... hit post much too early above. I'll request deletion.

This: most have said or given the impression, at least, that the searches are tricky but necessary

So true. But you'd be hard pressed to argue necessary. What did they achieve? Certainly not the capture of the terrorist.
posted by de at 6:56 AM on April 22, 2013 [1 favorite]


How many said "No thank you, not today" to the armed searchers, versus the number who complied?

Do we have an example of someone who said "no thank you"?
posted by mediareport at 6:58 AM on April 22, 2013 [1 favorite]


I'd love to see impressions from police who didn't agree with orders and those who said "no" to home searches.
posted by de at 7:01 AM on April 22, 2013 [1 favorite]


As I just said, being stoped and frisked isn't harmless, but there's no meaningful comparison between that and torture.

For instance, the police can detain you on a reasonable suspicion that you're have been, are, or are about to be engaged in criminal activity. They can frisk you if they have a reasonable suspicion that you may be armed. They may not torture you in these circumstances, in part because we balance the harm of being frisked as being comparative mild compared to the harm of being tortured.

Also the implication that I said anything non-comparable to torture is okay is asinine. I said that your question: "what's the boundary between this and illegal torture?" was pretty easily answerable in that torture and having your home searched are incredibly different. I wouldn't want a law that allowed police to get a torture warrant on probable cause, but obviously that makes sense for home searches. The torture comparison is irrelevant to this conversation.
posted by Bulgaroktonos at 7:04 AM on April 22, 2013


Given the stories out this morning about how the bombers wanted to head to NYC and continue killing and blowing things up, is anybody else reminded of Mumbai? I fear that that's what they had in mind - bad enough what happened in Watertown, but move that entire scenario to the much more densely populated Manhattan and it gets even more terrifying.
posted by fingers_of_fire at 7:09 AM on April 22, 2013 [1 favorite]


Sorry, bulgaroktonos, I wasn't clear myself - I understood that you were saying torture is way different from home search, and I agree with that. I was just putting "having your stuff rifled through" on a slightly different rung of of "having to stay indoors for a day" on the continuum was all.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 7:10 AM on April 22, 2013


I'm jumping in this thread now, but what's with the condescending push against Skygazer et. al?

What I don't like is that this "News about the marathon bombing" thread was turned into a "Debate about civil liberties" thread. Not to say that a discussion about civil liberties isn't important, but in terms of being able to use this thread as an alternative to news sites for getting updates on news related to the bombing, it's been pretty much useless since that debate started.
posted by burnmp3s at 7:14 AM on April 22, 2013 [22 favorites]


As far as the house-by-house searches, I know of at least two people that did decline to have their homes searched. They were asked to bring anyone in the household to the door so they could confirm they were OK, and then they told them to have a nice day and stay inside, and moved on. They didn't seem particularly concerned that someone was actively harboring the suspect, but just that the people inside weren't being held or coerced.
posted by rollbiz at 8:12 PM on April 20 [17 favorites −][!]


I don't see the problem with an approach consistent with rollbiz's comment above. I also don't think there's a firm distinction between a manhunt and a safety check in this situation. The armed suspect had fled on foot in a residential area and then hadn't been seen for a while. It wasn't crazy to think that he might hole up somewhere holding hostages.
posted by Area Man at 7:16 AM on April 22, 2013 [2 favorites]


I think it is important to bear in mind at this moment that it is important to a lot of important people, both in the media and the government, that these brothers turn out to be the bastard love children of Osama bin Laden and 007 with an arsenal of advanced nuclear powered laser weapons and a hideout under a volcano.

Everyone who can is going to push that narrative as hard as possible.

Because if they should turn out to just be a couple of lonely disaffected losers like the Columbine shooters with no money, a couple of basic handguns, and nothing but cookware, pipes and gunpowder instead of even real explosives, the whole reaction including hundreds of millions of dollars in lost GDP for the Boston metro area during the lockdown, the involvement of every conscious police officer for 500 miles, and the invasive door to door search are going to seem a tad excessive.
posted by localroger at 7:17 AM on April 22, 2013 [5 favorites]


It doesn't appear at those he's listening, as he continues to argue theoretical points against people who lived though the event.

Ancecdotes. Nickyskye and others have posted some possibly competing anecdotes, in the form of photos and videos. It's a little early to jump all over people expressing concern about what happened and act like a few Mefites' experiences are the definitive, open-and-shut answer to the question of whether it went too far.

I don't think it's particularly outrageous to suggest that the lockdown/shutdown (partially voluntary, partially not if you rely on transit to get around) of an entire city is a troubling precedent. The security/liberty question is a continuum, and it's possible that Boston did some things right and some things wrong. The continuing militarization of local police forces is a real thing, and the continuing erosion of civil liberties is a real thing, and I really appreciate that there are people willing to say, "hey, let's stop and look at this carefully" when everyone else is all, "hoorah, USA."
posted by Mavri at 7:18 AM on April 22, 2013 [8 favorites]


My bolding. You're pointing out that you think people are being condescending and then go on to imply that you think anyone arguing with skygazer's pov is ignorant and idiotic. Do I have that right?

Fair enough, point taken.

--

Look, I've been fully engaged int this fight but to be clear I think most have said or given the impression, at least, that the searches are tricky but necessary.

The hardest part about this thing is that it's hard to be taken seriously with a certain kind of rhetoric, whether or not the facts may be true.

For example, if I said, "The USA is a police state", one of the responses would probably be a sarcastic "What, 'wake up sheeple!!11!11' lol amirite". In fact, it's already happened above in this thread. The problem with this kind of response is that it parodies a common/cliched claim, which is common for a reason, and thus rejects debating it or accepting it as possible fact.

The easily-parodyable cries against a police state doesn't change the fact that the existing measures of security and control are, in fact, increasingly intrusive. That doesn't change the fact that 'random' stop-and-frisks occur more for black/brown people, that TSA security checks have become more and more intrusive, that we have prisons in which people are detained for 11 years (11 YEARS!) without a trial due to 'exigent circumstances', that the threat of imminent danger seems to very easily override 'due process', that, as jaduncan pointed out, we are literally questioning whether or not we should respect constitutional law in questioning Dzhokhar as an 'enemy combatant'.

It seems that our response to these facts are a version of the Kubler-Ross stages of grief:- denial, anger, bargaining, depression, or acceptance. Denial: "It's not a violation of our rights!" Anger: "How dare they impinge on our rights!" Bargaining: "Well, but it can happen, but just this time, really!" Depression: "Our society is fucked, there's no hope!" Acceptance: "That's just what has to happen, what can we do?"

Of these five, only Anger and Bargaining are productive, I think, in that inbetween the two we can figure out, as a public, how to act politically to modify the current situation. The other three fall into total non-participation. This Anger/Bargaining participation would be, ideally: "How can they impinge on our rights? (anger) Was it necessary? How can we figure things out so it really only happens when it's necessary, if not never? (bargaining)"

So what I am surprised to find in this thread is mostly Acceptance that overlaps only a little with Bargaining. Namely: "That's just what has to happen, it probably shouldn't have, but it was just once."
posted by suedehead at 7:21 AM on April 22, 2013 [8 favorites]


I know of at least two people that did decline to have their homes searched. They were asked to bring anyone in the household to the door so they could confirm they were OK, and then they told them to have a nice day and stay inside, and moved on.

I'd missed that, thanks. The images of police aiming guns at citizens coming out of their houses with their hands up leave a very different impression.
posted by mediareport at 7:23 AM on April 22, 2013 [2 favorites]


The longer version of the video, linked by taz, is in a YouTube channel named The Teamstered. I think that is the person who originally uploaded the video to YouTube.

Follow your link and you'll see that The Teamstered "liked" the video (orginally? who knows?) uploaded by something called Mailtube News where accompanying videos suggest that the suspects have been framed. Wherever or whoever the video is from, context-less pictures or videos seem pretty useless to making a case about Police behavior one way or another.
posted by octobersurprise at 7:27 AM on April 22, 2013 [2 favorites]


Mavri: "Ancecdotes. Nickyskye and others have posted some possibly competing anecdotes, in the form of photos and videos."

I think the problem is that some people are saying "I actually know people who declined to have their homes searched, and the police didn't have a problem with that", and it's being countered with "well, here's a video, and it's really unclear what the situation is, whether it was a door-to-door search or a specifically targeted search, whether it was with probable cause or without probable cause, whether there was a warrant or not, but it could have been a warrantless search, and therefore this hypothetical anecdote cancels out your actual anecdote".

I mean, obviously hard data is best, but absent hard data, I'm going to go with actual anecdote over "well, it could be" anecdote.
posted by Bugbread at 7:29 AM on April 22, 2013 [7 favorites]


That doesn't change the fact that 'random' stop-and-frisks occur more for black/brown people,

Random stop-and-frisks are unconstitutional. I'm not saying there aren't police officers stopping and frisking random black people because there absolutely are, but no one's claiming that's constitutional as far as I know.
posted by Bulgaroktonos at 7:30 AM on April 22, 2013 [2 favorites]


dhartung: " Basically the idea behind the Fourth, or at least the constitutional mechanism on which it's built, is that it protects you from the end result of a prosecution; it doesn't protect you, so to speak, if you're the potential victim of a crime rather than the perpetrator, because that would be backwards."

I'm just quoting this for truth, because many subsequent comments about the Fourth seem to not grasp this concept. Anyone bemoaning the loss of our liberties needs to understand that protections against unreasonable search and seizure do not protect you from being searched, they just protect you from being prosecuted based on evidence obtained during an illegal search. There are other laws meant to protect people from police overreach, and we can argue about whether those laws are strong enough, but claiming that it's a violation of the Bill of Rights to have police go door-to-door on a manhunt for a dangerous individual shows a remarkable lack of understanding of how the law works.
posted by tonycpsu at 7:31 AM on April 22, 2013 [11 favorites]


nickyskye, one of the officers in the manhunt asked for a check on the ID of someone stopped in the area and announced his name, stats and ID number over the Boston-area police band. Mike was used not as a name but as the letter M in the NATO phonetic alphabet.
posted by infinitewindow at 7:34 AM on April 22, 2013 [1 favorite]


Ancecdotes. Nickyskye and others have posted some possibly competing anecdotes

Nickyskye's first link concerning the voluntary vs involuntary search question is a video that encourages people to view more links at a link with "PoliceStateUSA" in the link.

This is less about finding out what really happened and more about finding proof of what one already believes and proclaiming it as truth.

The first video from another comment full of links show heavily armed officers (FBI?) searching a yard and going up to a house on a street. Nothing really damning there, so I skipped the other links, because what was posted so far is pretty contentless.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 7:42 AM on April 22, 2013


And you've lost me on where exactly I've been so "fucking insulting."

I'd say that telling my city to go "back to sleep" was fucking insulting. You've also - not in thread, but still - gone out of your way to insult me personally, which I can't help but refer to in my mind when you claim that you're being mistreated in the thread.
posted by sonika at 7:44 AM on April 22, 2013 [12 favorites]


Brandon Blatcher, both taz and I have linked the longer version of the link I first posted. The longer video comes from a Youtube channel called The Teamstered, which I mentioned above. That seems to be the original video, the person who videotaped the police raid into the house.

It is quite possible that people from both the right and the left may take that video and use it for their purposes. The content of the video stands on its own as a witness to a house raid in Watertown.
posted by nickyskye at 7:51 AM on April 22, 2013 [1 favorite]


The last finisher
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 7:57 AM on April 22, 2013 [4 favorites]


I believe that zizzle's use of "we" was referring to Bostonians, not MeFites, and was a rhetorical device in a heated comment. I hardy think she was espousing group think and while potentially condescending, was in response to a series of comments that have implied that the citizens of Boston are docile and gave up our rights too easily.

It's been a long week and it's hardly brought out the best in any of us. I know criticisms of Bostonians are making me punchy, and I'm trying to reign that in, so I totally get where she's coming from. (I don't have issue with debating the acts if LE or the civil rights implication, just when it crosses into implying that we took it lying down or misrepresenting what actually happened w/r/t practical implications.)
posted by sonika at 8:00 AM on April 22, 2013 [3 favorites]


The house in Watertown is here on Google Maps, if anyone cares. Trying to find out what the raid was for mostly returns sites like PoliceStateUSA, so it's hard to find out why they were arrested.
posted by Elementary Penguin at 8:00 AM on April 22, 2013


Again, they're being careful to point out that no one is saying exactly what caused his "neck injury," i.e. whether it occurred in the gun fire exchange at the boat or attempted suicide.

Why would they be so cagey? How could it matter?
posted by ChurchHatesTucker at 8:00 AM on April 22, 2013


I think it could matter quite a bit for his defense if he can argue that he sustained life threatening injuries. Also, if he tried to commit suicide, he might be able to use that to try and create a temporary insanity defense for the events during the manhunt. Just speculating, but since the media hasn't really done so well with remaining balanced, I can totally see why no one is specifying how he sustained his injuries.
posted by sonika at 8:05 AM on April 22, 2013 [1 favorite]


The first video from another comment full of links show heavily armed officers (FBI?) searching a yard and going up to a house on a street. Nothing really damning there, so I skipped the other links, because what was posted so far is pretty contentless.

Oh what the hell, lets go through the rest of links in that comment.

The second link just says masked officers in a house, but it's just a photo. A couple sits on couch with a cat, officers in background Everything seems calm.

The third shows an officer pointing a gun at the person taking the picture. Not exactly surprising as officers sweep the street. It's risky to point the objects at police in tense situations. Note that the person clearly wasn't shot, not did police attempt to confiscate the video.

The fourth shows heavily armed officers arresting a man on the Dartmouth campus. Not context is given for what he arrested for, it's literally just a photo of cops arresting someone.

Fifth is video of a family leaving a house as officers go inside to investigate. They aren't manhandled or abused. One cop keeps visually suggesting they put their hands up, but they don't and everyone is like "eh".

Sixth is of a woman rushing out of a house with her hands up and barefoot. No context or indicated that she was harmed or police did something wrong. Hands up is standard police procedure

Seventh link purports to show "ABC reporter forced to ground and searched at gunpoint," yet the article provides the following context "ABC News producer Megan Chuchmach described her encounter with officers who were suspicious of her backpack and thought she could be a suspect." The actual video clip of Megan Chuchmach talking about the experience is about 10 seconds out of 1:30 general news clip about the situation. At not point in those 10 seconds did Chuchmach indicate the police abused her in anyway. If anything she made it clear that the police communicated to her their suspicions were.

Eighth link is a citizen who feel their civil rights may been violated. That's fine but it doesn't really say anything or provide a larger context of abuse.

The ninth link is a just a photo of cops searching the beg of bicyclist. The guy is still on a his bike, opening the bag as an officer has his hand inside of it, clearly looking around. Hardly police abuse.

Ok, I've just spent half an hour going through these very supposedly important links, all of them were contextless and didn't prove police abuse or rights are being violated or citizens abused. In short, this was complete and utter bullshit and you'll have to forgive me if I continue to think that those talking about police abuse in this situation are increasing full of shit and bringing little to the very legitimate question of police tactics in this situation other than their own viewpoints.

I want that half hour of my life back.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 8:14 AM on April 22, 2013 [25 favorites]


Some discussion of the house with that most extreme video on Democratic Underground:
I listened to the scanner all day. Did not hear anything about people giving the cops a hard time.

The house in that video remind me of what they did in hostage situation sometimes when they are not sure who the bad guys are. Bring everyone out with their hands up, frisk, verify and then let them go.

Also there was an issue with a house [not gonna give address but it's the same street as the house in the video] st , I'm trying to remember if it was the basement door open and a possible explosive in the basement or if it the one where a kid in a hoodie ducked back into a basement boor when he saw the cops (he was just out trying to take pictures).

The only people I see having a problem with this is people who don't live here.
That bit about the basement door matches what's said on the tape, too.

I was looking to see if there was a scanner transcript anywhere, because you could probably do a "find" for the address and see what they were saying about it. I can't find one, though. Reddit had one, it's down.
posted by Miko at 8:24 AM on April 22, 2013 [2 favorites]


Maybe it was the house that had the supposed rocket in it? It's about the right time of day for it. Too bad the transcripts are down.
posted by Elementary Penguin at 8:27 AM on April 22, 2013


Laurel Street resident Peter Reed exits his home at gunpoint as SWAT teams evacuated residents.

The cop behind him does not appear to be pointing his gun at Reed. And the caption now reads: UNDER SIEGE: Laurel Street resident Peter Reed moves away from his home as SWAT teams evacuated residents.


other people ordered out with hands up

No one appears to be pointing guns at them; the cop on the far left has his gun pointed down and is making a "come this way" motion with his other hand.

Etc. I'm waiting for an email from a co-worker so I guess I could click through the rest of those links, but I think I'll go make breakfast instead.
posted by rtha at 8:31 AM on April 22, 2013


This Twitter feed by a person in that exact neighborhood is somewhat enlightening. It suggests that the houses right in that spot were of very serious interest at one point. It also suggests that SWAT didn't go to every house, just ones that were of major interest.
posted by Miko at 8:33 AM on April 22, 2013 [5 favorites]


Amazingly, Glenn Beck IS actually still talking about the Saudi student. Massive coverup by Obama and Kerry, the Saudi was on a terrorism watch-list, he was originally charged with terrorism on the day of the bombing, then in the following days, charges were dropped after Obama and Kerry met with Saudi delegates, Call your Representative NOW this is the TIME for action! Stop the crime, stop the coverup!

It's still not as wacky as Alex Jones, of course, who is convinced that it was Navy Seals and/or Mossad? I believe? who is clearly behind these heinous acts.

Authorities could resolve some of this zaniness by releasing the purported footage of Dzhokhar dropping the bag and walking away. Then again, nothing will ever appease the true nuts.

Prediction: like Port Arthur, 9/11, and Sandy Hook, there will be a big conspiracy movement to emerge from this bombing.
posted by (Arsenio) Hall and (Warren) Oates at 8:33 AM on April 22, 2013 [2 favorites]


Twitter results for a nearby address are really quite enlightening, now. It is quite clear now that they had a serious theory that the suspect was in or near the house in the video.
posted by Miko at 8:35 AM on April 22, 2013 [1 favorite]


Amazingly, Glenn Beck IS actually still talking about the Saudi student.

Not super amazing; if everyone else dropped it once became clearly not a thing, that means he owns that particular chain of whackadoo. He gets to be the foremost authority on it instead of shouting to be heard over the crowd, if only because the crowd all followed the story to where it actually went.
posted by cortex at 8:36 AM on April 22, 2013 [6 favorites]


I am happy to hear that as independent reviews of the events begin to emerge, it's looking objectively as though the police didn't over-reach. But as important as the perceptions of Bostonians are, the independent, objective reviews are absolutely necessary and I'm surpriased at how much defensiveness there is in this thread over whether even to question authority at all. The Constitution must still hold even - especially - in a crisis. Questioning authority and ensuring it doesn't over-reach is a responsibility. If it turns out that this crisis didn't lead to any more Patriot-Act-ish sliding down the slippery slope, then great. But that hasn't yet been determined yet.
posted by headnsouth at 8:36 AM on April 22, 2013 [4 favorites]


I think the defensiveness in here is the result of being called idiotic, sleeping sheep for not agreeing that there was unconstitutional overreach by the police on Friday. Emotional, but we're only human.
posted by Elementary Penguin at 8:38 AM on April 22, 2013 [8 favorites]


...and I'm surpriased at how much defensiveness there is in this thread over whether even to question authority at all.

If you could point out instances of people in this thread saying not to question authority, that would be great, thanks.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 8:40 AM on April 22, 2013 [6 favorites]


Maybe it was the house that had the supposed rocket in it? It's about the right time of day for it.

Is there any way to tell the actual time the video was made?
posted by torticat at 8:45 AM on April 22, 2013




CBS News: Bombing Suspect Awake, Answering Questions
posted by vers at 8:47 AM on April 22, 2013


sonika has it exactly right.

The "we" I was using was referring to people who lived the events.

I was affected in that I couldn't get to work and work closed down that day. Had I still been living where I did a few years ago, I'd have been in the shelter-in-place area. I have friends who live in Watertown and Cambridge.

I am glad nothing happened to them.

And ideological rights don't mean much when you're dead. So occasionally in bizarre and scary circumstances, it would seem that I am okay with ideological rights being put on the back burner if it means PEOPLE NOT DYING. I suppose I rate physical safety first in emergency situations. But that might just be crazy talk.
posted by zizzle at 8:51 AM on April 22, 2013


Twitter's really, really helpful.

This guy is on the same block as the super intense video.

He says:Suspect now on 2nd floor of [FOO] Street cornered by hundreds of officers from countless agencies. Now wearing black hoodie.

Someone else asks, if they had him cornered, did he now get away? Or have they got him? Because police activity seems to be calming down.

To which he replies, The reports on the scanner now consist of BPD talking with MSP SWAT on breaching techniques so he must still be inside

And finally, Okay nobody is talking about a standoff at the house anymore on the scanner, I think this guy may have slipped away somehow

Slightly before that, he says

I can literally here this fuck over the open mic scanner yelling @ the cops that have him cornered "You will all die today, like my brother"

I wonder if this is his imagination or a misunderstanding, or if we're going to find that what happened is that the suspect did find his way into a house or basement but slipped the net at that point.

I don't mind questioning authority. But we don't have honest questioning from everybody involved. From some people, we have refusal to listen and pushes for ideology, from others, ignoring evidence (including eyewitness), using hyperbole, and giving in to uncritical theorizing about events associated with very little actual data.
posted by Miko at 8:53 AM on April 22, 2013 [3 favorites]


I think the defensiveness in here is the result of being called idiotic, sleeping sheep for not agreeing that there was unconstitutional overreach by the police on Friday.

Seconded.
posted by sonika at 8:56 AM on April 22, 2013


More from Tweets mentioning the same address:

Google map the address I think they are talking about from listening to the scanner, [XX ABC] Street 02472 looks residential

Officer just checked in, en route to search the 3rd floor of [XX ABC] Street. #scanner #Boston #BostonBombing #Watertown

[XX ABC] Street and [two houses on other nearby street]. A Rocket has been identified in the basement of a house. EOD has been requested.

Lots more like this if you search the target address. Looks like they searched several even numbered houses on the same block, of which the one in the extreme video was one, and also like Elementary Penguin was right that this was the house they thought contained a rocket.

So, I believe that I was correct in my guess that that extreme video reflects not the ordinary house search procedure, but the reaction when police had some reason to believe that the suspect may actually be inside that house.
posted by Miko at 9:01 AM on April 22, 2013 [5 favorites]


Time of that video: Judging by the shadows, I looks like it was 8-11am. Probably closer to 9 than 11 though, but there aren't a lot of good shots showing the length and angle of shadows.
posted by gofargogo at 9:01 AM on April 22, 2013 [1 favorite]


And ideological rights don't mean much when you're dead. So occasionally in bizarre and scary circumstances, it would seem that I am okay with ideological rights being put on the back burner if it means PEOPLE NOT DYING. I suppose I rate physical safety first in emergency situations. But that might just be crazy talk.

It's not crazy, but it's also not the hallmark of a free society, which people who are questioning whether or not there was over-reach want to protect.

The problem lies in defining what "bizarre and scary circumstances" are, because they're subjective, and open to change with the political winds, and I'm very sure that my definition of "bizarre and scary circumstances" differs from Glenn Beck's.

So I respectfully disagree and I believe that even though I don't live in Watertown, my opinion matters.
posted by headnsouth at 9:02 AM on April 22, 2013 [6 favorites]


Tweets about that neighborhood cluster up around 9 AM.
posted by Miko at 9:02 AM on April 22, 2013 [1 favorite]


It's not crazy, but it's also not the hallmark of a free society, which people who are questioning whether or not there was over-reach want to protect.

There aren't too many people actually questioning this.
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 9:03 AM on April 22, 2013


Miko: that perfectly tracks with what I was seeing in the shadows.
posted by gofargogo at 9:05 AM on April 22, 2013 [1 favorite]




Does anyone have a link to that site that lets you look at tweets by geographic location and time? It'd be interesting to see what others around Oak St. were saying about that time.
posted by ChurchHatesTucker at 9:10 AM on April 22, 2013


I don't think anyone's closed off to considering whether this was an over-reach. It was a tremendously big effort. However, it seems to have been sufficient. How much less effort could we have gotten away with and still gotten the suspect? Impossible to know, as that is an unknowable alternate reality.
posted by Miko at 9:11 AM on April 22, 2013 [4 favorites]


The thing about the manhunt is that, at least in my opinion, if one *actually* breaks out the microscope and does a fine-grained play-by-play of the sequence of events -- being sure to only use the the information available at that specific point in time, and being sure to keep everything as concrete as possible (e.g., no retreating into lazy generalities) -- then I think the overall verdict is going to be that the decisions the various involved authorities made on Thursday and Friday were all generally either very reasonable or, at worst, understandable errors-on-the-side-of-overdoing-it-a-bit.

That's a bit of a mouthful to be sure, but I think the point is clear enough: if you're reacting only to a *summary* of the events it's easy to paint what happened as absurd, but that's because you're dealing with a summary; if you're a bit less lazy, and willing to bust out a microscope and go minute-by-minute, step-by-step -- or, at least, say, check a map and demonstrate a willingness to absorb information as it is supplied to you -- what happened is substantially more nuanced than it appears as a summary, and at least in my opinion rather more interesting than the discussion so far would make it out to be.

I'd summarize the events Thursday-Friday as essentially a telescoping sum of "Murphy's law": both the fugitives and the authorities kept having things go almost comically wrong, but in ways that (largely) kept canceling each other out until suspect #2 was finally taken into custody; this isn't to make light of anything that happened, but I'd wager the authorities were *extremely* surprised that they wound up getting that hero's thanks at the end...not unappreciated, but very unexpected.
posted by hoople at 9:15 AM on April 22, 2013 [10 favorites]


I also get the impression that, to the people who think this was a civil liberties violation, anyone who disagrees with them is closed off to questioning authority. I have questioned authority, mentally, and found that, this time, I think the authority is right. They struck a balance between safety and security that, to me, looks reasonable and consistent with the Constitution.
posted by Bulgaroktonos at 9:16 AM on April 22, 2013 [22 favorites]


I'd wager the authorities were *extremely* surprised that they wound up getting that hero's thanks at the end

One of the Charles Pierce articles posted earlier said that the Watertown PD is having trouble getting rid of all the food people are giving them as gifts before it spoils.
posted by Elementary Penguin at 9:19 AM on April 22, 2013 [4 favorites]


Billy Baker ‏@billy_baker 5m
The Chicago Tribune just had a pile of Regina's Pizza delivered to the Boston Globe newsroom. Very classy move.
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 9:26 AM on April 22, 2013 [4 favorites]




....Sorry for stirring the pot but I really was just curious. It seemed quite unprecedented.
posted to MetaFilter by UbuRoivas

Can you be curious without stirring the pot or at least give some thought to your observations ans opinions because that is what your typing-thoughts from hindsight. I see you did not fall for my trap which was so obvious delmoi picked up on it.

This is not unprecidented...but it is the largest order i have seen since Detroit and perhaps L.A.

you ask about lockdown for other murder...I live in the most violent city in america. I hear gunshots on a daily basis...3 times a week if lucky. body just turned up in a park near my house-today. Civil rights leaders are mudered for thier money. Burning houses and a mini van just the other day- broad daylight dude. We can't lock it down...unless you want the beginning of a civil war. We had a serial killer around here a few years ago and people were frightened and went into a self-imposed lockdown...watch the kids, watch the homeless etc. But Boston is different in that theses guys were playing ww2 in the streets.

hows this, what ifthey did not lock er down and these guys just went on another real bad rampage.
posted by clavdivs at 9:39 AM on April 22, 2013 [2 favorites]


I have questioned authority, mentally, and found that, this time, I think the authority is right. They struck a balance between safety and security that, to me, looks reasonable and consistent with the Constitution.

Thanks. I welcome this kind of response. I think this is the right way to think about things. "Let's question authority; in this case I think they're right." We can have a debate about whether they were, or not, but I think it's really fruitful to do so in this matter.

As I pointed out above, what happened can simultaneously be a civil liberties violation and an effective / practical solution. So the debate and discussion, at least to me, hinges on a negotiation between the two, not to negate the violation aspect of it entirely. So yes, I do think that "anyone who disagrees that [this is a civil liberties violation] is closed off to questioning authority". For example, comments like this:

In short, this was complete and utter bullshit and you'll have to forgive me if I continue to think that those talking about police abuse in this situation are increasing full of shit and bringing little to the very legitimate question of police tactics in this situation other than their own viewpoints.

So occasionally in bizarre and scary circumstances, it would seem that I am okay with ideological rights being put on the back burner if it means PEOPLE NOT DYING. I suppose I rate physical safety first in emergency situations.

And lastly:

People see what they are primed to see. If "immanent police state takeover" is a big thing in your head, this is going to look like that to you. If not, it looks like an intense, tense, pretty extreme but mostly understood, long-ass day of crime scene investigation and fugitive hunting.


It can be both. It can be BOTH.

It can be a "long-ass day of hard work", communication, collaboration and co-operation between highly trained professionals who are doing their job, risking their lives for the public in search of an suspect whose capabilities and connections are fully unknown.

It can also be a violation of civil liberties in which "ideological rights" are "put on the back burner", that homes and people are searched without warrants and due process, where people are shoved to the ground and handcuffed, because they vaguely fit the profile.

--

So the issue I personally have is that yes -- I don't think the thread acknowledges the second half enough. Would you be okay with torture justified by the state of emergency the USA is currently in? What about "mild torture", or waterboarding? Indefinite detainment without trial? Randomized strip searches? Are you okay with stop-and-frisk? What about Stop-and-identify laws so that the authorities know that you're here legally? What about border patrol stops? What about police officers questioning you because you look suspicious? What about TSA security procedures? What about police officers stopping to question you because you fit the profile of a criminal recently in the area? What about the police tracking you and doing background research on you because your religion pegs you as a potential radical? What about the police visiting because they got a noise complaint? What about police officers pulling you over for a broken rear light? What about the police stopping you for speeding? What about the police ticketing you because you ran a red light? What about the police stopping you because you broke into someone's home? What about the police catching you because you committed a murder?

It's an imperfect spectrum that I listed above, but somewhere in the midst of those questions above is your internal threshold for what is reasonable and unreasonable. Most probably we all believe that the police catching a murderer is justifiable. Ticketing you for a red light, similarly so. But then after that? Where's that line? Are you okay with border patrol stops but not with stop-and-frisk? Or okay with indefinite detainment but not with torture? Or maybe you're not okay with any of that but okay with TSA security. Et cetera.

I guess the simple point I am trying to make is that -- everyone has a threshold. It's always a negotiation between security and liberty; they're not necessarily mutually exclusive, but often times one is traded for the other. So let's not pretend that this door-to-door police hunt was somehow absolved or free of that debate. Let's engage within it rather than calling it "complete and utter bullshit" and rejecting it entirely.
posted by suedehead at 9:47 AM on April 22, 2013 [14 favorites]


iWitness was the site I was thinking of. Here are the local tweets (that have geo tagging on) from the Oak Street area Friday morning. Unfortunately, it looks like some were deleted due to the "no broadcasting" request.
posted by ChurchHatesTucker at 9:48 AM on April 22, 2013


Those were questions. I at least hope you understand that's how you coming across, Skygazer.
That's not what it sounds like at all to me, and I disagree with him. He is simply stating that the police appeared to behave as if they lived in a police state. His argument isn't that that they are using this to create a police state.

Also, like I said. Keep in mind that MA is the state that tried to prosecute people for filming/recording the police. How Orwellian is that? I wouldn't have a problem calling a state where you could go to jail for filming the police a police state, frankly. It's something the federal government actually had to rein them in on (as well as federal and I think state courts)
mediareport, I don't think anyone's arguing that reddit certainly did not help with the investigation. Some redditors turned out to be assholes that fucked things up.
The names and images were all over social media, Facebook, etc, before the media picked up on them. Sunil Trapathni's (sp?) name was never in the 'main-stream' media, just online.
I share your feeling, especially after reading that WaPo article in full. I'm happy investigative Redditors got their righteousness pulled down a peg and am hopeful that might make the site's moderators more humane in future episodes,
The way reddit works, anyone can start a subreddit, and they can moderate it however they like, so long as they don't violate the rules (no jailbait (anymore), no doxxing). There was a subreddit setup specifically to search for the bombers, and it was moderated based on the whims of the people who started it. They did make an attempt to be responsible, but the names were flying around on other subreddits, twitter, etc.
What is so baffling is that there was clearly some planning involved (like researching the use of a pressure cooker), but not enough forethought to realize that there would be thousands of cameras covering practically every angle of the event, and that it would be a virtual certainty that they would be identified. And yet minimal steps were taken to conceal their identity -- Dzhokhar didn't even bother wearing sunglasses like his brother.

Perhaps they knew they'd be identified, but they only underestimated the time frame.
Just straight up stupidity.
posted by delmoi at 9:54 AM on April 22, 2013


So the issue I personally have is that yes -- I don't think the thread acknowledges the second half enough. Would you be okay with torture justified by the state of emergency the USA is currently in? What about "mild torture", or waterboarding?

You have the floor. Make your case.

If you have reports and/or links of people being tortured during the Boston situation, by all means let's see it.

You're posting on Metafilter, which in the almost 10 years I've been here (Oh god, has it been that long), has never seemed to be a place that blindly follows authority, least of all US police authority. You have a receptive, thoughtful and educated audience that is about 80-90% on your side in terms of reforming police tactics, procedures and philosophy in America.

It can be both. It can be BOTH.

It can be a "long-ass day of hard work", communication, collaboration and co-operation between highly trained professionals who are doing their job, risking their lives for the public in search of an suspect whose capabilities and connections are fully unknown.

It can also be a violation of civil liberties in which "ideological rights" are "put on the back burner", that homes and people are searched without warrants and due process, where people are shoved to the ground and handcuffed, because they vaguely fit the profile.


You have the floor. Make your case.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 9:58 AM on April 22, 2013 [1 favorite]


suedehead: "Would you be okay with torture justified by the state of emergency the USA is currently in? What about "mild torture", or waterboarding? Indefinite detainment without trial? Randomized strip searches?
...
It's an imperfect spectrum that I listed above, but somewhere in the midst of those questions above is your internal threshold for what is reasonable and unreasonable. Most probably we all believe that the police catching a murderer is justifiable. Ticketing you for a red light, similarly so. But then after that? Where's that line? Are you okay with border patrol stops but not with stop-and-frisk? Or okay with indefinite detainment but not with torture? Or maybe you're not okay with any of that but okay with TSA security. Et cetera.
"

Isn't this just another dime-a-dozen slippery slope argument, though? Based on the information we have now, what we see above is cops dealing with a highly volatile situation in a specific area where they had reason to believe the perpetrator of the bombings might be. If nobody comes forward with any evidence that the searches shown above were truly unreasonable given the circumstances, then I think it might be wise to have a larger discussion about the slippery slope toward totalitarian rule when there's a more appropriate example -- there's certainly no shortage of them these days.
posted by tonycpsu at 9:58 AM on April 22, 2013 [1 favorite]


It can be both. It can be BOTH.

It can be a "long-ass day of hard work", communication, collaboration and co-operation between highly trained professionals who are doing their job, risking their lives for the public in search of an suspect whose capabilities and connections are fully unknown.

It can also be a violation of civil liberties in which "ideological rights" are "put on the back burner", that homes and people are searched without warrants and due process, where people are shoved to the ground and handcuffed, because they vaguely fit the profile.
Yeah, it's important to point out that that the fewer rights people have, the easier it is for the government to do it's job. And the more rights people have, the harder it might be.

Anyway, the constitution, case-law, etc creates a balance point. We also know, in retrospect that the searches were unnecessary, so it's not like not doing them would have prevented us from finding the guy.
posted by delmoi at 9:59 AM on April 22, 2013




Just coming in on the wire: Tsarnaev will not be tried as an enemy combatant.
posted by (Arsenio) Hall and (Warren) Oates at 10:01 AM on April 22, 2013 [10 favorites]


If nobody comes forward with any evidence that the searches shown above were truly unreasonable given the circumstances, then I think it might be wise to have a larger discussion about the slippery slope toward totalitarian rule when there's a more appropriate example --

How much time will you allow? I think what the police do with unrelated evidence of unrelated crimes discovered during the crisis will say a lot more in the long run about slippery slopes, and that will take months (at leats) to happen. The larger discussion will not be resolved one way or another in this particular thread.
posted by headnsouth at 10:05 AM on April 22, 2013 [1 favorite]




Just coming in on the wire: Tsarnaev will not be tried as an enemy combatant.

Good, because that was the only legal option.
posted by one more dead town's last parade at 10:07 AM on April 22, 2013 [2 favorites]


How much time will you allow?

You have a week, starting from today.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 10:07 AM on April 22, 2013 [2 favorites]


>can I point out that the USA has been in a "state of emergency" since 2001

Where have you been? The U.S.A. has been in a permanent state of "national emergency" since 1933. In fact we are currently experiencing 25 different emergencies as we speak.
posted by AElfwine Evenstar at 10:08 AM on April 22, 2013 [1 favorite]


It was rhetorical, Brandon Blatcher. I'm not interested in proving anything to you.
posted by headnsouth at 10:09 AM on April 22, 2013 [1 favorite]


If you have reports and/or links of people being tortured during the Boston situation, by all means let's see it.

Biggest strawman ever. Question for Brandon Blatcher: Do you honestly, truly think that I'm arguing that people were tortured during the door-to-door search? Or was that just a quick rhetorical device to dismiss my argument?

Isn't this just another dime-a-dozen slippery slope argument, though?

It's not a slippery slope argument, because I'm not saying that one thing necessarily leads to another. (For god's sake, I'm not saying that speeding tickets lead to waterboarding!) I'm saying that the door-to-door search was a civil rights violation. I'm also saying that, as far as I can tell, it may have been handled with (relative) care. I'm saying: "Or was it? Let us discuss."

Based on the information we have now, what we see above is cops dealing with a highly volatile situation in a specific area where they had reason to believe the perpetrator of the bombings might be.

And can I point out that this justification happens everywhere? There are scenarios where, if we torture a known enemy of the state, it could be because the intelligence agents have a very specific reason to believe that the enemy of the state contains crucial information. So? Are we okay with that?

More than anything, what I am saying (and I am making my case here), is that I'd like to discuss this, but that instead there's an atmosphere of "THE PROFESSIONALS DID THEIR JOB, IT HAD TO BE DONE, ALRIGHT?" that pervades this thread. I come to Metafilter for nuanced, intelligent discussion, and for the most part, it happens. In this case, let's not steamroll the nuance over with "STOP SCREAMING TORTURE IT WAS JUST PROFESSIONALS DOING THEIR JOB", that has clearly been happening in this thread so far.
posted by suedehead at 10:09 AM on April 22, 2013 [5 favorites]


Boston Marathon bombings suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev will be prosecuted in a civilian court

The right decision for more than just civil liberty-related ones. Trying him as a common criminal robs his actions of at least some of whatever symbolic value they might have had for admirers or potential imitators.
posted by dersins at 10:10 AM on April 22, 2013 [8 favorites]




Would you be okay with torture justified by the state of emergency the USA is currently in? What about "mild torture", or waterboarding? Indefinite detainment without trial? Randomized strip searches? Are you okay with stop-and-frisk?

I am both totally not ok with any of these things and completely ok with how things actually played out on Friday. I prefer to deal with reality as it unfolds rather than take what went down fairly well and apply it to some vague "slippery slope" argument.

And honestly, I'd rather focus on what we can do as a country and a society to ensure that attacks like what happened in Boston on Monday don't happen again - how can we make this a better place to live where people are less angry? How can we keep ourselves safe without giving up our civil liberties? Are these things even possible? These are the questions that interest me rather than "the next time something gets bombed, what are we going to do?" because believing that this secnario repeating is inevitable is depressing and something I'm not willing to roll over and accept.
posted by sonika at 10:12 AM on April 22, 2013 [4 favorites]


Trying him as a common criminal robs his actions of at least some of whatever symbolic value they might have had for admirers or potential imitators.

Hear, hear. Terrorists are bad criminals, but they're still just criminals. To go to war against them is to concede their point.
posted by Rustic Etruscan at 10:13 AM on April 22, 2013 [7 favorites]


Jokar's March 20th tweets to someone who asks if he "were poppen fireworks” and [Johar] replied, that “we can do some more damage I got some more left.”

Sounds like #drug #slang to me. #420NO
posted by (Arsenio) Hall and (Warren) Oates at 10:16 AM on April 22, 2013


The larger discussion will not be resolved one way or another in this particular thread.

That's exactly my point -- it's all mental masturbation, and not at all germane to any kind of learning of lessons from what happened in Boston last week. I think arguments based on new information that comes to light about the circumstances surrounding these searches are in bounds, but what we're getting instead are ruminations and prognostications about what this means for future events. If you can't show that these particular actions were illegal (the original location of the goalposts) or even unreasonable (where they seem to be now) then we're much better off having these conversations in the context of a real case of excessive force that has nothing to do with exigent circumstances, and in situations where the police don't deserve the kind of leeway I think we'd all agree they deserve when they have reason to believe a bombing suspect might be behind the door.
posted by tonycpsu at 10:16 AM on April 22, 2013 [1 favorite]


More than anything, what I am saying (and I am making my case here), is that I'd like to discuss this, but that instead there's an atmosphere of "THE PROFESSIONALS DID THEIR JOB, IT HAD TO BE DONE, ALRIGHT?" that pervades this thread. I come to Metafilter for nuanced, intelligent discussion, and for the most part, it happens. In this case, let's not steamroll the nuance over with "STOP SCREAMING TORTURE IT WAS JUST PROFESSIONALS DOING THEIR JOB", that has clearly been happening in this thread so far.

May I suggest that maybe the reason people aren't really all that keen about having this nuanced discussion you seek is because this has been a very, very fresh situation in a lot of people's minds, and people are still kind of emotional right now?

Note that I say "right now", as I suspect this state of affairs may indeed be temporary. The discussion you're trying to have is an important one, but the room may not quite be ready for it just yet. You wouldn't try to have a general "state of our relationship" talk with your SO right after they'd just gotten through some big huge hellacious thing at work, you'd give them a chance to catch their breath first. This is kind of the same thing - people are at a high emotional pitch because a lot of us spent the last week being on the verge of flipping the fuck out, and the freakout hormones just need to finish being metabolized.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 10:16 AM on April 22, 2013 [7 favorites]


Biggest strawman ever. Question for Brandon Blatcher: Do you honestly, truly think that I'm arguing that people were tortured during the door-to-door search? Or was that just a quick rhetorical device to dismiss my argument?

We're talking about police tactics in the Boston situation and you're dragging in other issues, such as torture hat hasn't been proven to have occurred, in the situation we're discussing. If you don't want to called on issues you bring up, then don't bring'em up.

Look, you mentioned a number of scenarios in your comment and asked the question of where the line should be drawn. Very little of what you brought up occurred in Boston. If you have information that says otherwise, the floor is yours, make your case.


It was rhetorical, Brandon Blatcher. I'm not interested in proving anything to you.

I apologize for trying to deal with facts, rather than attempt to score ideology points with rhetoric.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 10:17 AM on April 22, 2013 [6 favorites]


I'm saying that the door-to-door search was a civil rights violation.

Can I ask how you're determining this? You may have addressed it above and I've missed it. I have seen comments from people here saying that some people refused entry to the police, and they were not arrested. If a cop knocks on your door and nothing happens when you refuse them entry, is that a civil rights violation?
posted by rtha at 10:18 AM on April 22, 2013 [1 favorite]


You wouldn't try to have a general "state of our relationship" talk with your SO right after they'd just gotten through some big huge hellacious thing at work, you'd give them a chance to catch their breath first. This is kind of the same thing - people are at a high emotional pitch because a lot of us spent the last week being on the verge of flipping the fuck out, and the freakout hormones just need to finish being metabolized.

Nobody has to read or contribute to this thread. Anyone who is personally offended because other posters are expressing concerns that they don't feel is free to get up and walk away from the Internet if they're feeling fighty or defensive.
posted by headnsouth at 10:24 AM on April 22, 2013 [2 favorites]


As far as I can tell, most searches were voluntary, but there seems to be some video evidence suggesting there were also a limited number of involuntary searches. There is, however, some suggestion that those limited involuntary searches were based on specific and particularized suspicion regarding those particular properties.

Right now, I don't know enough to know whether there were civil rights violations in the house to house searches, but so far the information seems to suggest the police did not violate the law.
posted by Area Man at 10:26 AM on April 22, 2013 [1 favorite]


Anyone who is personally offended because other posters are expressing concerns that they don't feel is free to get up and walk away from the Internet if they're feeling fighty or defensive.

....Are you suggesting that to others in this thread, or realizing this is something you could be doing yourself?
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 10:27 AM on April 22, 2013 [7 favorites]


Nobody has to read or contribute to this thread. Anyone who is personally offended because other posters are expressing concerns that they don't feel is free to get up and walk away from the Internet if they're feeling fighty or defensive.

That's an idea. Another idea is that people who want to wage an unwinnable internet fight can do so in a different arena, leaving this thread for people who want to discuss further developments in the Boston Marathon bombing case.
posted by (Arsenio) Hall and (Warren) Oates at 10:28 AM on April 22, 2013 [13 favorites]


EmpressCallipygos feel free to look at my comments in this thread, I really am concerned only with the larger, long-term questions, I'm not a fighty type. I get that people's emotions are wrapped up in their responses but the larger, long-term questions are still valid. It's a long thread, but it's a good thread, and this community is good at the large, long-term questions. I will stick around because as always this remains the best, smartest, least emotionally driven place to be online when things are ugly in the world.
posted by headnsouth at 10:34 AM on April 22, 2013 [1 favorite]


Jokhar Tsanaev and the Boston Marathon by Thomas Goltz, a Caucasus and Central Asian region specialist, and contributing editor to The Essential Edge. It offers some exceptional background and insight as to who the Chechens are and what might have motivated the Boston Marathon bombers.
posted by nickyskye at 10:34 AM on April 22, 2013 [6 favorites]


Nobody has to read or contribute to this thread. Anyone who is personally offended because other posters are expressing concerns that they don't feel is free to get up and walk away from the Internet if they're feeling fighty or defensive..

But we would like to.

However, when events in the thread tend to discourage us from attempting to participate - stuff like suggesting that people take a hike because somebody else chose to claim that they know how we feel - it casts a bit of a shadow on the idea of engagement.

But that's just me.
posted by lampshade at 10:36 AM on April 22, 2013 [1 favorite]


I get that people's emotions are wrapped up in their responses but the larger, long-term questions are still valid.

Then I re-state my suggestion the conversation you want is not the conversation anyone else is ready to have yet. You are not the only person who wants to have that conversation, but you may be in the minority when it comes to whether we have that conversation today.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 10:37 AM on April 22, 2013 [1 favorite]


You have the floor. Make your case.
[...]
You have a week, starting from today.

Seriously?
posted by Chuckles at 10:37 AM on April 22, 2013 [3 favorites]


Assuming that the reports that he drove over his brother turn out to be true, I wonder if he'll be charged with anything for that one - manslaughter or murder or whatever.
posted by Flunkie at 10:40 AM on April 22, 2013


I'm thankful that the suspect will be tried as a civilian. However, I'm apprehensive about whether or not he will receive a fair trial, given the rhetoric thrown around these days. Is there any chance in hoping for a fully-legal court case?
posted by CancerMan at 10:41 AM on April 22, 2013 [1 favorite]


I wondered that too, Flunkie. And in re: to charges, will the whole incident(s) be a terrorism charge or will there be say, 4 murder charges, possibly another for the brother, and a whole host of charges for the various smaller aspects of the crime?
posted by youandiandaflame at 10:43 AM on April 22, 2013


US Attorney for District of MA: Dzhokar Tsarnaev charged with conspiring to use weapon of mass destruction against persons and property in U.S. resulting in death
posted by CancerMan at 10:45 AM on April 22, 2013


lampshade I don't even know who you are or what you may have posted in the thread, I certainly don't assume I know how you feel. My post was a response to direct highly charged challenges to what I thought were reasonable posts of mine on a subject I believe to be germane.

because somebody else chose to claim that they know how we feel

There is no "they" and no "we" here. Well, except for the few posters who were casting aspersions on Bostonians for somehow giving in to the police, I guess. But that wasn't me by a long shot.

As for the latest update, I am very, very grateful that he will be tried as a civilian in criminal court.
posted by headnsouth at 10:46 AM on April 22, 2013


Assuming that the reports that he drove over his brother turn out to be true, I wonder if he'll be charged with anything for that one - manslaughter or murder or whatever.

Felony murder. If you engage in a felony with someone, and they get killed, you can be charged with their death.
posted by Ironmouth at 10:46 AM on April 22, 2013


Seriously?

Seriously.

If you're alleging police abuse, make your case.

If you feel as though more time is needed to prove police abuse and are asking for how much, despite the numerous reports coming out that police abuse didn't occur, then yes, you're going to get a time limit.

Personally, the issue to me is whether that there's widespread abuse. I have no doubt that are asshole cops who behaved like assholes in this situation. I would like to see those cops given a stern talking to or suspended ro fired, depending on the specifics of what they did.

But overall, the BPD seems to have handled the situation professionally. If you have links or information that says otherwise, we're way past time to show your hand.

Assuming that the reports that he drove over his brother turn out to be true, I wonder if he'll be charged with anything for that one - manslaughter or murder or whatever.

God, I hope so, he deserves to have the book thrown at him.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 10:47 AM on April 22, 2013 [1 favorite]


That's an idea. Another idea is that people who want to wage an unwinnable internet fight can do so in a different arena, leaving this thread for people who want to discuss further developments in the Boston Marathon bombing case.

Yeah. I'd still like to see clarifications and revised timelines that clearly explain what actually happened during the manhunt, for instance. There's still plenty that's confusing about what actually happened after the attack to sort out. I'd like to see an official accounting of events minus the initial speculation and erroneous reporting that buzzed around every twist or alleged twist in the story. If we start to hear more than a handful of accounts from people who claim to have been searched unreasonably or whatever then we might consider discussing that. Otherwise, it looks like the BPD acted quite professionally and went by the book on this.

Assuming that the reports that he drove over his brother turn out to be true, I wonder if he'll be charged with anything for that one - manslaughter or murder or whatever.

See--that's the kind of thing I'm hoping for more clarity on. Did that actually happen or not? We've since heard that the 7-11 robbery originally identified as the point at which the eldest brother was killed was unrelated to the attacks, and there have been some accounts suggesting that Djohar fled on foot after his brother was killed (which would obviously rule out his having run over the body). So what ultimately is the official version of what happened?
posted by saulgoodman at 10:47 AM on April 22, 2013 [3 favorites]


Assuming that the reports that he drove over his brother turn out to be true, I wonder if he'll be charged with anything for that one - manslaughter or murder or whatever.

He could probably be charged with murder. Even without intent, federal felony murder includes base offenses like terrorism and car jacking.
posted by benbenson at 10:47 AM on April 22, 2013


I would expect that he'd get a fairly normal trial, in the sense of obeying the normal rules of procedure. There might be some issues with confidential evidence that are come up in terrorism trials, but my gut tells me this is less likely to produce those than say, the Moussaoui trial, because there's not yet, to my knowledge, any indications that these guys were working with any larger organizations.

Is he going to get a "fair trial" in the sense that truly unbiased jurors will render verdicts based purely on the evidence? I'd guess that that is going to be really hard, as it is in any high profile crime.
posted by Bulgaroktonos at 10:48 AM on April 22, 2013


I'm apprehensive about whether or not he will receive a fair trial, given the rhetoric thrown around these days. Is there any chance in hoping for a fully-legal court case?

....You know, it's possible. I was worried about the same thing when we tried Timothy McVeigh after Oklahoma City; either there was more analysis of the trial than usual, or I was paying more attention to it, but I saw a lot of accounts of the kind of trial he got. I remember being surprised, and moved, at how well the trial was going - the defense attorney and the judge both had some especially striking things to say about how defending McVeigh, or finding him "not guilty", was a way of upholding the principle the country stood for if you honestly and sincerely found him innocent. The judge in particular addressed the jury before they deliberated, telling them that if they honestly felt McVeigh was innocent, to say so - "you're not letting America down if you do that, quite the opposite."

Granted, this was before 9/11. But I still hold out hope that we can do that again.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 10:49 AM on April 22, 2013 [1 favorite]


However, I'm apprehensive about whether or not he will receive a fair trial, given the rhetoric thrown around these days.

I'm not sure what this means in this context. Can you elaborate about where you are afraid there will be unfairness vis a vis rhetoric? Are you just talking about the difficulty of finding impartial jurors, or about something else?
posted by OmieWise at 10:49 AM on April 22, 2013 [1 favorite]


A couple more videos of the Watertown events.

These videos were taken by a resident in Watertown, which she labeled LIVE INSIDE Martial Law in Watertown MA. There are 16 of them. Here is a good example from her Youtube channel.

Another video: "SWAT team securing houses"
posted by nickyskye at 10:52 AM on April 22, 2013 [1 favorite]


Assuming that the reports that he drove over his brother turn out to be true, I wonder if he'll be charged with anything for that one - manslaughter or murder or whatever.

Commissioner Ed Davis said in the 60 Minutes interview that Dzhokhar "backed over" his brother while fleeing. I'm not sure why anyone assumes he did it on purpose -- although obviously even accidents are felony murder -- but I keep hearing, "Oh my god, he ran over his own brother" as if this makes him some sort of supervillain.
posted by FelliniBlank at 10:53 AM on April 22, 2013 [1 favorite]


My post was a response to direct highly charged challenges to what I thought were reasonable posts of mine on a subject I believe to be germane.

Then maybe direct your catch-all response to those highly charged challenges, as opposed to "anyone".
posted by lampshade at 10:54 AM on April 22, 2013


I think I'm mostly afraid of whether or not the judge will be impartial, or if s/he will be pressured or swayed by outside parties of ensuring a certain verdict.
posted by CancerMan at 10:55 AM on April 22, 2013 [1 favorite]


I thought this post made an important distinction between the wisdom of crowds and the madness of mobs: Why did Reddit get the wrong man?
posted by shothotbot at 10:55 AM on April 22, 2013


See--that's the kind of thing I'm hoping for more clarity on. Did that actually happen or not? We've since heard that the 7-11 robbery originally identified as the point at which the eldest brother was killed was unrelated to the attacks, and there have been some accounts suggesting that Djohar fled on foot after his brother was killed (which would obviously rule out his having run over the body). So what ultimately is the official version of what happened?

There was an account from a random person eyewitness (I'm pretty sure I read it in the NYT) that Older Brother was shot and on the street, and Younger Brother jumped behind the wheel and drove away, driving over Older Brother in the process (by accident), and then abandoned the vehicle not far away and fled on foot. I'll go look for that account, but that's my recall of the timeline of that bit.
posted by rtha at 10:55 AM on April 22, 2013 [1 favorite]


Here is the criminal complaint.
posted by (Arsenio) Hall and (Warren) Oates at 10:56 AM on April 22, 2013 [13 favorites]


Brandon Blatcher: "yes, you're going to get a time limit. "

And then what? If it's 8 days, then what? If it never happens, then what?
posted by boo_radley at 10:57 AM on April 22, 2013


These videos were taken by a resident in Watertown, which she labeled LIVE INSIDE Martial Law in Watertown MA. There are 16 of them. Here is a good example from her Youtube channel.

Along with 90 'occupy' videos.
posted by empath at 11:00 AM on April 22, 2013 [2 favorites]


Okay--so it looks like what happened is that Dzokhar reportedly stole an SUV, then abandoned it a couple of blocks later and fled on foot (and presumably, it was in this SUV that he backed over his brother). I just looked that up and figured it out for myself, so hopefully NY magazine knows what it's talking about, and I now know something I didn't before that isn't just wholly guesswork.
posted by saulgoodman at 11:00 AM on April 22, 2013


The criminal complaint is interesting -- sections 13 and 14 on page 5 describe Dzhokhar's behavior immediately before, during, and just after the detonations, as seen from the surveillance video. I wonder if we will ever see that footage.
posted by (Arsenio) Hall and (Warren) Oates at 11:02 AM on April 22, 2013


> Nobody has to read or contribute to this thread. Anyone who is personally offended because other posters are expressing concerns that they don't feel is free to get up and walk away from the Internet if they're feeling fighty or defensive.

I don't think we should be telling Bostonians that they should "get up and walk away from the internet" and stop participating in thread that's about the city they live in. Maybe you could trying being less fighty and insulting when they tell you their own experience and information contradicts the made-up bits of the political narrative you're trying to promote, and, like ‒ I don't know ‒ actually try to discuss stuff with some semblance of good faith.
posted by nangar at 11:02 AM on April 22, 2013 [3 favorites]


Here is the criminal complaint.

And that's why you don't try to "hide in plain sight" when there a gazillion active cameras in the area. They have a second-by-second account of Tsarnaev walking down the road, placing his backpack, reacting (or not) to the first explosion, and then getting out of the blast radius right before his backpack explodes.
posted by Holy Zarquon's Singing Fish at 11:03 AM on April 22, 2013 [1 favorite]


These videos were taken by a resident in Watertown, which she labeled LIVE INSIDE Martial Law in Watertown MA. There are 16 of them. Here is a good example from her Youtube channel.

I watched the 1:50 video, didn't listen to the sound. The heavy armed cops are shown entering the house via opening the screen and door, while presumably the occupants are milling about 10 feet away, clearly recording what's going on. They are standing, not handcuffed or surrounded by police and just watching. Other cops are in the street, in rather relaxed positions as they watch the other officers enter the house.

Not sure what the problem here is.

And then what? If it's 8 days, then what? If it never happens, then what?

Depends on the allegation and evidence brought forth. If it never happens, then definitely sushi.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 11:03 AM on April 22, 2013


These videos were taken by a resident in Watertown, which she labeled LIVE INSIDE Martial Law in Watertown MA. There are 16 of them. Here is a good example from her Youtube channel.

Does anything happen in any of these videos beyond people standing on the street? The one you linked directly to has people officers going into the house while people stand outside filming them (so much for "cops said no cameras so they wouldn't get filmed"), but I don't see anything that indicates whether it was with permission or not. I watched some others, and beyond several interminable conversations about who had keys to what, I don't see anything in those videos.
posted by Bulgaroktonos at 11:03 AM on April 22, 2013 [1 favorite]


Interestingly, there is nothing in the criminal complaint about the murder of the MIT cop. Not a word about it.
posted by (Arsenio) Hall and (Warren) Oates at 11:05 AM on April 22, 2013


These were Federal charges, the MIT police officer would be state. Needless to say, it will be quite a laundry list by the time the charges are finalized.
posted by ambrosia at 11:08 AM on April 22, 2013 [3 favorites]


We're talking about police tactics in the Boston situation and you're dragging in other issues, such as torture hat hasn't been proven to have occurred, in the situation we're discussing. If you don't want to called on issues you bring up, then don't bring'em up.

We're discussing the question of a degree of force, and whether or not heavily armed SWAT teams coming to your door and asking for a search is a violation of civil liberties. It's entirely reasonable to put it in the context of other violations of civil liberties, and the larger relationship between security and liberty that every government or nation-state or sovereign community has to deal with. It's called 'historical context', or 'other political/socioeconomic factors'.

Unless you'd rather talk about issues in a total vacuum, as if none of that context existed. (Which, might I add, is the typical justification for anti-affirmative-action anti-women's-right's rhetoric. "It's reverse discrimination -- why should certain races get special treatment when other races don't? Why can't we have a men's day if there is a women's day?")
posted by suedehead at 11:09 AM on April 22, 2013 [1 favorite]


Brandon Blatcher: "Depends on the allegation and evidence brought forth. If it never happens, then definitely sushi."

It's disappointing to see you get blase after being such a hard-ass.
posted by boo_radley at 11:10 AM on April 22, 2013 [2 favorites]


US Attorney for District of MA: Dzhokar Tsarnaev charged with conspiring to use weapon of mass destruction against persons and property in U.S. resulting in death

A pipe bomb is not a WMD. A trailered boat isn't a volcano lair either, in case that's next.
posted by localroger at 11:10 AM on April 22, 2013 [4 favorites]


sections 13 and 14 on page 5 describe Dzhokhar's behavior immediately before, during, and just after the detonations, as seen from the surveillance video. I wonder if we will ever see that footage.

I said this in the other thread, but I wonder if they withheld that video because the bomb was placed right next to the Richard family. I imagine it's pretty tough to watch the last minutes of that little boy's life... I don't know if this would have been a consideration, and if so, whether the video might be released after some period of time has passed.
posted by torticat at 11:11 AM on April 22, 2013 [2 favorites]


The federal definition of WMD includes " (A) any explosive, incendiary, or poison gas—
(i) bomb, (ii) grenade, (iii) rocket having a propellant charge of more than four ounces, (iv) missile having an explosive or incendiary charge of more than one-quarter ounce [or] (v) mine"
posted by Holy Zarquon's Singing Fish at 11:15 AM on April 22, 2013


US Attorney for District of MA: Dzhokar Tsarnaev charged with conspiring to use weapon of mass destruction against persons and property in U.S. resulting in death

I see they've redefined "weapon of mass destruction" to include bombs like the ones at the marathon, which are not weapons of mass destruction in the generally accepted sense.
posted by one more dead town's last parade at 11:16 AM on April 22, 2013 [1 favorite]


localroger: "A pipe bomb is not a WMD."

Wikipedia:
Criminal (Civilian)

For the purposes of US Criminal law concerning terrorism,[28] weapons of mass destruction are defined as:

* any destructive device defined as any explosive, incendiary, or poison gas bomb, grenade, rocket having a propellant charge of more than four ounces, missile having an explosive or incendiary charge of more than one-quarter ounce, mine, or device similar to any of the devices described in the preceding clauses[29]
* any weapon that is designed or intended to cause death or serious bodily injury through the release, dissemination, or impact of toxic or poisonous chemicals, or their precursors
* any weapon involving a biological agent, toxin, or vector
* any weapon that is designed to release radiation or radioactivity at a level dangerous to human life[30]

The Federal Bureau of Investigation's definition is similar to that presented above from the terrorism statute:[31]

* any explosive or incendiary device, as defined in Title 18 USC, Section 921: bomb, grenade, rocket, missile, mine, or other device with a charge of more than four ounces
* any weapon designed or intended to cause death or serious bodily injury through the release, dissemination, or impact of toxic or poisonous chemicals or their precursors
* any weapon involving a disease organism
* any weapon designed to release radiation or radioactivity at a level dangerous to human life
* any device or weapon designed or intended to cause death or serious bodily injury by causing a malfunction of or destruction of an aircraft or other vehicle that carries humans or of an aircraft or other vehicle whose malfunction or destruction may cause said aircraft or other vehicle to cause death or serious bodily injury to humans who may be within range of the vector in its course of travel or the travel of its debris.

Indictments and convictions for possession and use of WMD such as truck bombs,[32] pipe bombs,[33] shoe bombs,[34] cactus needles coated with botulin toxin,[35] etc. have been obtained under 18 USC 2332a.

The Washington Post reported on 30 March 2006: "Jurors asked the judge in the death penalty trial of Zacarias Moussaoui today to define the term 'weapons of mass destruction' and were told it includes airplanes used as missiles". Moussaoui was indicted and tried for the use of airplanes as WMD.
posted by zarq at 11:17 AM on April 22, 2013 [4 favorites]


Here's a link to the complaint on justice.gov.
posted by Nonsteroidal Anti-Inflammatory Drug at 11:17 AM on April 22, 2013


We're discussing the question of a degree of force, and whether or not heavily armed SWAT teams coming to your door and asking for a search is a violation of civil liberties. It's entirely reasonable to put it in the context of other violations of civil liberties, and the larger relationship between security and liberty that every government or nation-state or sovereign community has to deal with. It's called 'historical context', or 'other political/socioeconomic factors'.

So, that's a no on the links to actual systemic abuses in the Boston situation, gotcha.

Unless you'd rather talk about issues in a total vacuum, as if none of that context existed. (Which, might I add, is the typical justification for anti-affirmative-action anti-women's-right's rhetoric. "It's reverse discrimination -- why should certain races get special treatment when other races don't? Why can't we have a men's day if there is a women's day?")

What historical context would you like to bring into this situation where the BPD seems to have behaved reasonably and professionally?


It's disappointing to see you get blase after being such a hard-ass.

You were being reasonable, thought I'd do the same.

Headnsouth was making a point about time scale and whether police abuses would come to light. I thought it was odd to bring up that point, when there's plenty of evidence that they behaved reasonably, if not to everyone's liking. If there's abuses, shouldn't those be coming light right along with the other videos? How long should we wait before we can put these repeated allegations to rest?

It sounded like moving the goalposts, but for no real reason. Does anyone seriously think if police abuse in this situation came to light eight days or eight months from now that people would be bothered? People are always going to be outraged by legitimate police abuse, its not going to have a time limit.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 11:21 AM on April 22, 2013 [2 favorites]


I was curious and it looks the expansion of the term to include explosive devices happened in 1994. McVeigh, for instance, was convicted of using a weapon of mass destruction.
posted by Bulgaroktonos at 11:21 AM on April 22, 2013 [3 favorites]


MetaFilter: It was rhetorical. I'm not interested in proving anything to you.

(said with more irritation than most taglines.)
posted by benito.strauss at 11:22 AM on April 22, 2013 [5 favorites]




Geez, that's a little broad: the offense, or the results of the offense, affect interstate or foreign commerce, or, in the case of a threat, attempt, or conspiracy, would have affected interstate or foreign commerce;
posted by smackfu at 11:25 AM on April 22, 2013


The U.S.A. has been in a permanent state of "national emergency" since 1933.

Well, according to this guy, the Constitution was suspended at that time also. If that's the case, then this whole discussion seems somehow moot.
posted by octobersurprise at 11:26 AM on April 22, 2013


Thanks for the link to the official complaint, (A)H(W)O: I suppose I could have found that myself if I'd had more time, but that single link has clarified more for me about what actually happened than any amount of trying to follow the news accounts has.

I was on the fence at one point earlier on in all this, wondering if Dzokhar might not have simply gotten caught up in something he didn't fully understand, etc., but based on the facts presented in the official complaint, it seems pretty clear he knew what he was doing (whether his brother's influence got him to this point or not). He definitely doesn't seem to have been an unwilling--or hell, even reluctant--conspirator based on the events described in the official complaint. There's still some ambiguity there about his role, but he definitely seems to have been in on it the whole way based on that.

My guess now (and it is purely a best-guess) is that the elder brother helped radicalize his younger brother with some vaguely nationalistic/religious ideas, but that neither were plugged into any particular larger terrorist group. From the account given by the car-jacking witness (in which the elder(?) brother boasts and tries to intimidate his victim by declaring "I did that." about the bombings), it seems to me this was more of an ego-driven crime than a truly ideologically-motivated one, but then again, it's probably always a little of both.

Interestingly, there is nothing in the criminal complaint about the murder of the MIT cop. Not a word about it.

Yeah, I noticed that. I wonder if this wasn't another one of those things, like the 7-11 robbery, that the press jumped on too hastily? A prediction: every premature, misstatement from the press in the initial coverage will inspire at least a dozen new conspiracy theories.
posted by saulgoodman at 11:27 AM on April 22, 2013


Headnsouth was making a point about time scale and whether police abuses would come to light.

Actually I wasn't. It's becoming pretty clear that with the exception of a few random videos that are out of context and don't look over the top anyway, the police were amazingly calm and by the book.

I'm interested in seeing what kinds of unrelated prosecutions occur based on what was found in random citizens' homes. Not that they were abusive in finding things (illegal immigrants, drugs, children in crappy conditions) but whether they are able to use what they found to deport/prosecute/get CPS involved etc.

This won't happen in a week.
posted by headnsouth at 11:28 AM on April 22, 2013 [2 favorites]


Interestingly, there is nothing in the criminal complaint about the murder of the MIT cop. Not a word about it.

Yeah, I noticed that. I wonder if this wasn't another one of those things, like the 7-11 robbery, that the press jumped on too hastily? A prediction: every premature, misstatement from the press in the initial coverage will inspire at least a dozen new conspiracy theories.


As noted above, the murder of the MIT cop will be charged under state law, not federal law.
posted by devinemissk at 11:31 AM on April 22, 2013 [1 favorite]


I'm interested in seeing what kinds of unrelated prosecutions occur based on what was found in random citizens' homes. Not that they were abusive in finding things (illegal immigrants, drugs, children in crappy conditions) but whether they are able to use what they found to deport/prosecute/get CPS involved etc.

Then you have my apologies for not understanding you.

Yes, that particular point you mention is interesting and I'd be curious to see what happens there. Hopefully the authorities will be reasonable about this.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 11:33 AM on April 22, 2013 [2 favorites]


This won't happen in a week.

I may be being pollyanna-ish but I don't think it will happen at all. However I'd be more than happy to issue a long bet--that the home searches that happened because of the Marathon Bomber in Watertown will not result in any after-the-fact prosecutions for things cops saw while in people's houses--and then just STFU about it since hypothesizing based on what we think is true about the world isn't really a great way to have discussions about things that have actual facts associated with them.
posted by jessamyn at 11:34 AM on April 22, 2013 [28 favorites]


I'm interested in seeing what kinds of unrelated prosecutions occur based on what was found in random citizens' homes. Not that they were abusive in finding things (illegal immigrants, drugs, children in crappy conditions) but whether they are able to use what they found to deport/prosecute/get CPS involved etc.

That's a good point. I think the house to house searches were probably handled appropriately in the context of the day, although I'd still like to sort out what was happening in some of the more intimidating incidents.

I don't know if it's likely that unrelated prosecutions will happen. The BPD and FBI are going to be busy enough, and I suspect that local and state law enforcement won't want to squander public goodwill.
posted by maudlin at 11:40 AM on April 22, 2013


I would love for this thread to be a source of new information regarding these events.

This article paints a very different picture of the map and timeline of events based on information from the carjacking victim.

1. The carjacking took place in Brighton, not 3rd street in Cambridge.
2. It clears up a lot of the confusion surrounding the green Honda Civic which turned up AT the shoot out scene after FBI Boston put out an alert for it. And it helps me make sense of an eyewitness telling me that they saw the suspects transferring bags from the SUV to the Civic, which I didn't want to introduce to this thread until now since I couldn't make sense of it.
3. Finally, it introduces more questions to me regarding the importance of Watertown, or the lack thereof, in this saga.
posted by bobobox at 11:43 AM on April 22, 2013 [6 favorites]


I'm sure the Boston PD, when they weren't dodging bullets and bombs, were cackling with glee at the opportunity to break into middle class homes searching for meth labs, grow operations, and crack dens. Perhaps they'd be really lucky and find some underfed puppies in a backyard.
posted by empath at 11:45 AM on April 22, 2013 [12 favorites]


Also in a purely technical way, drug convictions would be tricky to get. They'd need to go apply for a warrant based on what they saw in plain view during their search, which would likely require them to be taking notes on drugs they saw, which seems unlikely given the number of homes they searched and the relative importance of drugs at the time. Then, if they search the house and turn up no drugs, I don't see how you convict on "on a day that I searched a dozen houses, I saw something that looked illegal."
posted by Bulgaroktonos at 11:46 AM on April 22, 2013


US Attorney for District of MA: Dzhokar Tsarnaev charged with conspiring to use weapon of mass destruction against persons and property in U.S. resulting in death

A pipe bomb is not a WMD. A trailered boat isn't a volcano lair either, in case that's next.


A pressure cooker bomb that blows the limbs off of a lot of people is, under the law.
posted by Ironmouth at 11:47 AM on April 22, 2013 [3 favorites]


We're discussing the question of a degree of force, and whether or not heavily armed SWAT teams coming to your door and asking for a search is a violation of civil liberties.

Under the US constitution, as interpreted by US courts, it isn't if they actually don't search your house when you deny them permission and they don't have a warrant.

It's entirely reasonable to put it in the context of other violations of civil liberties, and the larger relationship between security and liberty that every government or nation-state or sovereign community has to deal with. It's called 'historical context', or 'other political/socioeconomic factors'.

It's called "changing the subject". You've made factual assertions about what happened during the manhunt in Watertown, and they've been called out as false. Now you want talk about something else (along with the implication that everyone who pointed out they were false approves of waterboarding).
posted by nangar at 11:48 AM on April 22, 2013 [5 favorites]


.
posted by Horace Rumpole at 11:50 AM on April 22, 2013 [2 favorites]


(Bells)
posted by robocop is bleeding at 11:51 AM on April 22, 2013 [2 favorites]


so apparently Amanda Palmer wrote a really ill-conceived poem about Dzokhar. get a fucking bl...oh right. in other news, Amanda Palmer plans to visit North Korea as a state guest, co-author a graphic novel about steampunk antebellum slaves, and declaw a cat on live tv.
posted by threeants at 11:55 AM on April 22, 2013 [1 favorite]


So, that's a no on the links to actual systemic abuses in the Boston situation, gotcha.

Do you think a heavily armed SWAT team coming to your door and asking for a search involves no coercion? I think it does. I think psuedo-coercive checkpoints that trick you into being searched involve a great deal of coercion. I've been to checkpoints in the West Bank, where as a non-white person clearly identifiable as non-Arab and non-Jew, I still felt an immense amount of coercion, invisible violence, and pressure, thanks to the existing imbalance of power. Yet I was neutral. I had my rights. Strictly speaking, I shouldn't have felt anything. Yet I did. And that is how coercion works.

I'd argue the Watertown searches involved a great deal of coercion. How many people would refuse a search if a seriously armed SWAT team pulled up to your door? More importantly, how many people would also undergo a kind of social pressure from people like you, who would say things like, "oh jeez come on, it's not abuse or police oppression; we're innocent, let's just go out there and let ourselves be searched?" If you were my neighbor in Watertown, and you said that, and you would be creating an atmosphere where questioning these things are considered "bullshit" (your words) and irrelevant. I am saying that those actions are actively harmful.

I would consider that a 'soft' or 'social' erosion of rights, in which the erosion of rights is not necessarily happening at the legal or judicial level, but at the social or discursive level. For example, when the context in which one can ask "what about my rights?" is itself banished to an lesser question in times of "urgency". This happened after 9/11, for example. And the social erosion, in turn, sets the setting for a legal erosion of rights, since people vote differently, or become content with different situations. A social erosion leads to legal erosions. What I am saying is, in a nutshell: If we dismiss the importance of rights, then rights diminish. I know, it sounds all elementary school US history-y. But there's a reason why all those texts and those founding fathers and those constitution-y things say the things they do.

But maybe you're not interested in talking about any this either, since what I am saying is not just about Boston. But I believe that coercion and violence are strong things. I believe that it can happen, as in this case, in a well-intentioned situation where a professional (and seemingly reasonable) police force is looking for a bomber. I believe that it can happen when a white police officer stops a non-white person on the street, because of all the underlying context and history that exists within that interaction.

you'll have to forgive me if I continue to think that those talking about police abuse in this situation are increasing full of shit and bringing little to the very legitimate question of police tactics in this situation

And most of all, I believe that blithely dismissing necessary discussions about rights and effective coercion is itself a harmful act.
posted by suedehead at 11:55 AM on April 22, 2013 [10 favorites]


I'm genuinely 100% behind empathy, utilitarian vs. punitive justice, and preventing terrorism at its root, human causes, but I'm quite shocked that there seem to be a lot of media commentators whose first reflex is concern towards Dzokhar. (That's not at all directed at folks in this thread; I couldn't agree more with the people who expressed sadness that someone so young would find himself committing such an act; that it's imperative he receive a fair trial and not be tortured; etc.)
posted by threeants at 11:59 AM on April 22, 2013 [1 favorite]


Do you think a heavily armed SWAT team coming to your door and asking for a search involves no coercion?

Yeah, I guess in the future they should just send unarmed cops so that nobody feels pressured to comply with searches that might help them find the guy who's been terrorizing them for five days.
posted by tonycpsu at 12:00 PM on April 22, 2013 [3 favorites]


Some errors in that WSJ account of the carjacking, I think. "The victim told police he was driven to a Shell Gas Station on Memorial Drive in Watertown." Mem Drive ends at Watertown, and the Shell is at Mem Drive and River Street in Cambridge
posted by stopgap at 12:00 PM on April 22, 2013


suedehead, you said here that I'm saying that the door-to-door search was a civil rights violation. So you seem to have already decided. Except you still want to "discuss". Except you haven't offered - that I've seen, and I may have missed it in this thread - any links that give evidence that there were in fact civil rights violations.

When some people refused to let the police in, and nothing happened to them, was that a civil rights violation?
posted by rtha at 12:00 PM on April 22, 2013 [1 favorite]


I think that the people of Boston are more than capable of standing up for their own rights, and if they believe they were violated, they are free to sue about it, or march about it or otherwise complain about it. I haven't seen any of them do that, and until someone actually does complain that their rights were violated, the backseat driving by outsiders isn't particularly relevant or helpful.
posted by empath at 12:02 PM on April 22, 2013 [13 favorites]


This article paints a very different picture of the map and timeline of events based on information from the carjacking victim.

Heartily seconded.
posted by mudpuppie at 12:02 PM on April 22, 2013


(I guess it is really emotionally jarring to think that the alleged perpetrator is not a foreign interloper like the 9/11 terrorists or a socially disconnected loner like most of the domestic terrorists; by all accounts he was a totally normal, pleasant guy who participated in the community. It does blow my mind to wonder how many times, walking through Cambridge, I've likely been within some hundreds of feet of him.)
posted by threeants at 12:03 PM on April 22, 2013 [3 favorites]


This article paints a very different picture of the map and timeline of events based on information from the carjacking victim.

Heartily seconded.


I would love for this thread to be a source of new information regarding these events.

Heartily seconded. (Copied wrong line!)
posted by mudpuppie at 12:03 PM on April 22, 2013 [4 favorites]


Do you think a heavily armed SWAT team coming to your door and asking for a search involves no coercion?

That's a 13 minute video, which appears similar to shorter one I saw earlier. I've already given about 40 minutes to viewing links and videos, so I'm leery of just watching another video 'cause someone is uncomfortable about heavily armed police checking houses while a known bomber is on the run in the area.

To answer your general question, it could involve coercion, but I'm not seeing anything in the video link that is definitively so. If there's a particular time point in that video displays differently, could you point me to that? Is there something specific about the police actions you want to point out?
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 12:03 PM on April 22, 2013 [2 favorites]


A quote from an article nickyskye linked to, above:

Were they [Jokhar and Tamerlan Tsarnaev] taking revenge for alleged American involvement in the assassination of Jokhar's namesake, Air Marshal Dudayev?

That is as good a guess as any of the speculations I have heard going around the blogosphere today, even if the dates don't fit: the Boston terror happened on April 15, 2013; Dudayev was killed on April 21, 1996.


I posited this as a potential motivation for the bombing (and the timing thereof) in chat while the manhunt for Jokhar was underway. It will be interesting to learn about the motivations behind the attacks.
posted by syzygy at 12:05 PM on April 22, 2013


This is a very readable, nicely researched, succinct and intelligent blog about the Boston bombing case and its many aspects, noting some interesting details. The Empty Wheel is worth checking out and very informative with excellent links. It's the best, most readable, I've come across on the web so far about this situation.

A few of the topics:

The Dzhokhar Complaint includes a link to the formal complaint with the timeline of the events.

The complaint appears to depart from some reports from Waterville cops, in that it reports both brothers took the Mercedes SUV together to the shootout. (Read the complaint to hear the chilling exchange with the Mercedes owner.)

The complaint describes apparent gunshot wounds to Dzhokhar’s head, neck, legs, and hand. If these are indeed gunshot wounds, it indicates more gunshot wounds than has been previously revealed by the FBI.

Finally, the complaint describes finding what appears to be the clothes Dzhokhar wore at the Marathon — his white hat and black jacket. They also found some BBs there.


“Could Not Be Independently Confirmed”

The Shut-Down Question

Two Years after Missing Abdulmutallab because of a Spelling Variance, Government Missed Tsarnaev because of a Spelling Variance

Dzhokhar Tsarnaev: The Big Issue Is Not Miranda, It’s Presentment
posted by nickyskye at 12:08 PM on April 22, 2013 [13 favorites]


More importantly, how many people would also undergo a kind of social pressure from people like you, who would say things like, "oh jeez come on, it's not abuse or police oppression; we're innocent, let's just go out there and let ourselves be searched?"

I'm requesting that you not put words in my mouth.

But maybe you're not interested in talking about any this either, since what I am saying is not just about Boston.

Ya might want to stick to talking about Boston in a thread about Boston.

Totally get that you want to make larger points, just don't think they're really relevant to what actually happened in Boston.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 12:13 PM on April 22, 2013 [3 favorites]


(I guess it is really emotionally jarring to think that the alleged perpetrator is not a foreign interloper like the 9/11 terrorists or a socially disconnected loner like most of the domestic terrorists; by all accounts he was a totally normal, pleasant guy who participated in the community. It does blow my mind to wonder how many times, walking through Cambridge, I've likely been within some hundreds of feet of him.)

If we have any chance of regaining control over the violence in this country, then this realization has to happen to millions of people, including politicians, talking heads, and the crazy white right who as we speak are distancing themselves from the "other" causasians.
posted by headnsouth at 12:14 PM on April 22, 2013 [5 favorites]


Just back from the State House.

After the moment of silence and the peels of the bells, I had to go for a walk. It was difficult to leave. A moment....one still moment.....seems hardly enough for a life.
posted by zizzle at 12:15 PM on April 22, 2013 [5 favorites]


I guess I'll have to stop complaining that Saddam didn't have WMD's then, zarq. And since that would seem to cover both hand grenades and land mines, both of which we arm our regular troops with, I guess that means our armed forces are all walking war criminals by our own definitions.
posted by localroger at 12:35 PM on April 22, 2013 [3 favorites]


localroger: "I guess I'll have to stop complaining that Saddam didn't have WMD's then, zarq. And since that would seem to cover both hand grenades and land mines, both of which we arm our regular troops with, I guess that means our armed forces are all walking war criminals by our own definitions."

Didn't read the link, huh?
posted by zarq at 12:45 PM on April 22, 2013 [3 favorites]


I don't think we should be telling Bostonians that they should "get up and walk away from the internet" and stop participating in thread that's about the city they live in.

This Bostonian is doing just that.

I'm done being told to go back to sleep. Done being told that my experience is invalid. Certainly more than done with MeMails referring to me as a "sanctimonious asshole." (Yes, I discussed them with the mods, who agreed that ignoring them is the best course of action right now.)

I had hoped to have a discussion about a really difficult event in my city, but apparently the MeFi Civil Liberties Protection Brigade knows better than I do, as I am simply a sheep. This is really a disappointing turn of events for me, but hell if I'm going to stick around a thread that makes me feel defensive simply by virtue of living through last week in Boston.
posted by sonika at 12:45 PM on April 22, 2013 [37 favorites]


I guess I'll have to stop complaining that Saddam didn't have WMD's then, zarq.

Right?

By my quick reading, the US defines the term differently in strategic/defense, military, and civil/criminal applications.
posted by Nonsteroidal Anti-Inflammatory Drug at 12:46 PM on April 22, 2013 [2 favorites]


What are the police supposed to wear when searching for someone who has already been in a gunfight with them and killed an MTI police officer? Should they take off the protective gear just so as to avoid any coercive appearance?
posted by Area Man at 12:48 PM on April 22, 2013 [3 favorites]


sonika: "Certainly more than done with MeMails referring to me as a "sanctimonious asshole." (Yes, I discussed them with the mods, who agreed that ignoring them is the best course of action right now.) "

Ugh. That truly sucks. :(
posted by zarq at 12:55 PM on April 22, 2013 [24 favorites]


Reading the complaint is upsetting enough, I don't need to see the video.
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 12:57 PM on April 22, 2013


Those are the same bunch of YouTube videos linked here yesterday. Not much to see that wasn't already known to everyone following the search itself.
posted by Miko at 1:15 PM on April 22, 2013


Certainly more than done with MeMails referring to me as a "sanctimonious asshole."

I hope that whoever sends memails like this will give themselves a timeout, and remove the thread from their recent activity, because this just isn't okay.
posted by rtha at 1:18 PM on April 22, 2013 [24 favorites]


(Arsenio)Hall&(Warren)Oates, the wsj article you wished to see last night has jumped outside the paywall for the moment: Turn to Religion Split Bomb Suspects Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev's Home
posted by maggieb at 1:18 PM on April 22, 2013 [2 favorites]


Yeah, I guess in the future they should just send unarmed cops so that nobody feels pressured to comply with searches that might help them find the guy who's been terrorizing them for five days.

Heavily armed men in the street is what distinguishes this from, say, the blizzard at the start of Feburary. That travel ban came with an 'or we might arrest you', but guns and body armour is 'or we might shoot you', regardless of whether it's the friendliest and most civil-liberties-conscious manhunt the world has ever seen. You seem to be wanting to argue that it's an acceptable level of coercion or an inescapable level of coercion, which is fine and I might well agree with you, but mocking the idea that there's an implied threat seems disingenuous.
posted by hoyland at 1:19 PM on April 22, 2013 [4 favorites]


Mod note: Folks, we get that people are bummed about various things. However this doesn't change the fact that bringing content over from MeMails to MeFi is against the rules. Go to MeTa or talk to us but no more discussion of this here.
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 1:19 PM on April 22, 2013 [3 favorites]


The complaint appears to depart from some reports from Waterville cops

Watertown. It's Watertown.
posted by Miko at 1:22 PM on April 22, 2013 [5 favorites]


I see they've redefined "weapon of mass destruction" to include bombs like the ones at the marathon, which are not weapons of mass destruction in the generally accepted sense.

Here’s Why Tsarnaev Was Charged With Using a ‘Weapon of Mass Destruction’
posted by homunculus at 1:22 PM on April 22, 2013


I guess I'll have to stop complaining that Saddam didn't have WMD's then, zarq. And since that would seem to cover both hand grenades and land mines, both of which we arm our regular troops with, I guess that means our armed forces are all walking war criminals by our own definitions.

This is beyond disingenuous.
posted by dersins at 1:23 PM on April 22, 2013 [3 favorites]


Watertown. It's Watertown.

When I was driving home from work on....Friday, I guess, there was a reporter on NPR - either an NPR reporter or some other reporter they were talking to - who kept saying Waterton, and I found myself screaming at the radio: TOWN! TOWN! IT'S A TOWN MADE OF WATER FOR CHRISSAKES.
posted by rtha at 1:32 PM on April 22, 2013 [6 favorites]


The Times story about the complaint mentions him using a cellphone. If he still has it, that's an incredible weight of evidence.
posted by Miko at 1:33 PM on April 22, 2013 [3 favorites]




That's a really good piece, homunculus.
posted by Miko at 1:39 PM on April 22, 2013


So if reports are correct that he was arraigned in bed in front of the magistrate, what was his plea? Did A PD enter a plea on his behalf?
posted by Dr. Zira at 1:44 PM on April 22, 2013 [1 favorite]


The rough-legged hawk in that link would like you all to know that it is not in favor of war, or terrorism.

And it's a good piece, yeah.
posted by rtha at 1:47 PM on April 22, 2013 [3 favorites]




When I was driving home from work on....Friday, I guess, there was a reporter on NPR - either an NPR reporter or some other reporter they were talking to - who kept saying Waterton, and I found myself screaming at the radio: TOWN! TOWN! IT'S A TOWN MADE OF WATER FOR CHRISSAKES.

I once heard Melissa Block refer to 50 Cent as "rapper 50 cents."
posted by OmieWise at 1:56 PM on April 22, 2013 [2 favorites]


people always want to pluralize things.
posted by sweetkid at 1:59 PM on April 22, 2013


roomthreeseventeen: That NYT Interactive is so, so fantastic. The audio snippets beautifully and horrifically humanize that moment in time more than words ever could (and this coming from someone obsessed with words).

Thank you for that link.
posted by youandiandaflame at 1:59 PM on April 22, 2013


Ya might want to stick to talking about Boston in a thread about Boston.

Well, the suspect in question is an American citizen who is charged with committing acts of violence in Boston. Senator Graham and other politicians wanted him charged as a terrorist and his right to due process suspended practically indefinitely, regardless of (or perhaps because of) his naturalized status. The suspect in question may likely (almost certainly) have killed some people; Sen. Graham wants to set a precedent for millions of American citizens, where their rights can be suspended at political whim. In addition, you have an effectively paramilitary shut-down of the city of Boston, with police affecting a much broader set of rights more or less ceded to them by the larger public to search private spaces at will. The scale of this operation set a unique precedent for a process that will likely be followed when the next act of mass violence occurs. There are significant civil liberties issues here that most people not only should be, but some are concerned about and want to discuss, which affect Bostonians and the larger population in the United States, equally. This is bigger than you.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 2:00 PM on April 22, 2013 [14 favorites]


There are significant civil liberties issues here that most people not only should be, but some are concerned about and want to discuss, which affect Bostonians and the larger population in the United States, equally. This is bigger than you.

I really do get the "bigger issue" piece, but it is sort of fighting with the ongoing development of the story in Boston that's going on this thread. It's an important issue worthy of discussion that is tightly connected to the ongoing Boston story, but at the same time, there's still stuff happening little by little with the actual marathon victims, the recovery from the manhunt/search, the suspect in custody, etc. It is sort of frustrating to sashay from the "giant systemic issues" conversation to the "meanwhile, granular-level incidents are still happening" conversation. Maybe I'm wrong to feel this way and maybe this should all be in the same thread, but one feels topically different enough from the other that it's like being in two braided threads rather than one.
posted by Miko at 2:05 PM on April 22, 2013 [7 favorites]


There are significant civil liberties issues here that most people not only should be, but some are concerned about and want to discuss, which affect Bostonians and the larger population in the United States, equally.

Few people are disputing that and most seem to agree that there are significant issues to think to review and think about.

What people are disputing is what occurred in this specific situation. Some seem to think that significant civil rights violations occurred. Others do not and have asked for evidence that the alleged violations did occur.

This is bigger than you.

Then you should leave personal digs out of this and discuss something else, eh?
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 2:07 PM on April 22, 2013 [1 favorite]


What people are disputing is what occurred in this specific situation. Some seem to think that significant civil rights violations occurred. Others do not and have asked for evidence that the alleged violations did occur.

Right. It's totally fine to discuss these other issues, but we've discussed them since last night when the first alleged illegal search video was posted, and the evidence that the cops did the wrong thing given the circumstances has been very weak. Since that posting, new shit has come to light, man, including tweets suggesting that the cops had every reason to believe Jahar might be in the houses they were searching.

By all means, if there were real abuses, I think it's important to talk about those here, but lacking evidence thereof, the people who jumped to conclusions as soon as they saw a video that looked questionable keep going back to slippery slope arguments and vague platitudes about how we must be vigilant to protect our civil liberties that really don't have any place here.
posted by tonycpsu at 2:14 PM on April 22, 2013 [5 favorites]


Miko: ...but one feels topically different enough from the other that it's like being in two braided threads rather than one.

Seconded. The "discussion" in this thread descended into something less than a discussion yesterday and then was picked up again today and the same happened. Personally, I chose to ignore the chatter after a certain point because it became ridiculously cyclical and some of the things that were being lobbed about by members when it became obvious we weren't all going to agree were pretty shitty (e.g. "sheeple", crappy, juvenile memails, and the like). At this point it doesn't feel like a discussion anymore, it feels like a weird pissing match with added youtube links in lieu of verifiable facts.
posted by youandiandaflame at 2:15 PM on April 22, 2013 [5 favorites]


The House of Representatives will have a classified briefing on the case
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 2:18 PM on April 22, 2013


The New York Times posted a transcript of the Magistrate hearing, which includes Tsarnaev at one point saying "No." So he might be able to speak before long after all.
posted by stopgap at 2:21 PM on April 22, 2013 [1 favorite]


Miko: It is sort of frustrating to sashay from the "giant systemic issues" conversation to the "meanwhile, granular-level incidents are still happening" conversation.

My take on this is that there are a tiny number of grand standers on both sides of the civil rights question who are turning this entire thread into little more than a childish back-and-forth about this one, single aspect of the story, to the exclusion of almost everything else.

I agree that the issue is important. I think it could be discussed here, alongside the new developments, if everyone in the thread was willing to back off of the bluster and stop with the offensiveness and ultimatums.
posted by syzygy at 2:23 PM on April 22, 2013 [10 favorites]


(Note that either some agent of the US government or the NYTimes used the trial version of pdfFactory to produce the PDF of that transcript!)
posted by stopgap at 2:23 PM on April 22, 2013 [3 favorites]


man I wanna talk about how bad this new development is

seriously I did better in high school

posted by Countess Elena at 2:24 PM on April 22, 2013 [8 favorites]


I'm pretty sure that poem is addressed to Jon Snow
posted by OHenryPacey at 2:26 PM on April 22, 2013 [4 favorites]


what the fuck is that poem I don't even
posted by (Arsenio) Hall and (Warren) Oates at 2:27 PM on April 22, 2013 [2 favorites]


That poem is awful.
posted by shakespeherian at 2:28 PM on April 22, 2013


man I wanna talk about how bad this new development is

It's extremely offensive that someone considers that poetry.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 2:28 PM on April 22, 2013 [6 favorites]


I'm certainly feeling less like hugging the hippys now. Can the land of imagination civil rights abuses crap fuck off and get its own thread now? If not then this one is pretty much done.
posted by Artw at 2:28 PM on April 22, 2013 [3 favorites]


Amanda What-the-actual-fuck-ing Palmer
posted by stopgap at 2:28 PM on April 22, 2013 [2 favorites]


Christ, is she auditioning for a Vogon role in a future H2G2 film?
posted by tonycpsu at 2:29 PM on April 22, 2013 [19 favorites]


You don't know which of these two things feels worse:
Your conscience, or Amanda Palmer's verse.
posted by Rustic Etruscan at 2:33 PM on April 22, 2013 [2 favorites]


Can you be curious without stirring the pot or at least give some thought to your observations ans opinions because that is what your typing-thoughts from hindsight.

One of the tropes of this thread is people saying "don't make assumptions from afar! Ask the Bostonites on the ground how they feel about things!" I wanted to know why such a strong response to this event was seen to be justified, and not to tens of thousands of other murders, so I asked as politely as possible. They answered & I was happy with the answer, and wasn't arguing back or trying to tell them they were wrong.

I see you did not fall for my trap which was so obvious delmoi picked up on it.

I still don't see what the trap was, or what delmoi picked up on. Maybe I don't know enough of what happened at Port Arthur. In my timeline, a nutter shot up dozens of people, then the cops caught him, then the Prime Minister outlawed all military style weapons & bought them up. Maybe there was a siege in there somewhere? Was Port Arthur locked down? I have no idea. I don't remember it being a "thing" at the time, and hardly controversial because that tiny hamlet exists only to serve a small tourist trade, and the tourists wouldn't have been showing up anyway, if there was a nutter on the loose with military weapons. It's nothing like shutting down a million people's worth of activity for a day to catch somebody who killed far fewer people.

This is not unprecidented...but it is the largest order i have seen since Detroit and perhaps L.A.

you ask about lockdown for other murder...I live in the most violent city in america. I hear gunshots on a daily basis...3 times a week if lucky. body just turned up in a park near my house-today. Civil rights leaders are mudered for thier money. Burning houses and a mini van just the other day- broad daylight dude. We can't lock it down...unless you want the beginning of a civil war. We had a serial killer around here a few years ago and people were frightened and went into a self-imposed lockdown...watch the kids, watch the homeless etc. But Boston is different in that theses guys were playing ww2 in the streets.

Frankly, that all sounds like WW2 in the streets to me, but if people want to treat homemade bombs as warlike and military assault weapons as civilian, I'm not going to argue with what people on the ground think. That's their view & daily reality, so I tip my hat to it.

hows this, what ifthey did not lock er down and these guys just went on another real bad rampage.

The lockdown happened after Tamerlan was killed, didn't it? So they were chasing just Dzokhar. I had my own opinion about the ongoing threat to the public from him, and will keep it to myself except to say that with hindsight things turned out largely as I expected. At the time he was on the run, though, it's understandable that with so many unknowns it would have seemed dangerous, so best to mitigate that risk. Besides, people are used to spending days indoors, so it's not a big deal. It sounds almost like fun; I'd put aside a Scrabble game, single malt & cigars for stay-at-home days.
posted by UbuRoivas at 2:34 PM on April 22, 2013 [2 favorites]


...and now the Amanda Palmer dancers.
posted by griphus at 2:34 PM on April 22, 2013 [3 favorites]


That Amanda Palmer poem's a little heavy on the anaphora.
posted by dersins at 2:37 PM on April 22, 2013 [1 favorite]


The shame is that there is a lot of poetry in this situation. A whole city, a whole region, paralyzed and then brought to whooping and cheering and celebrating and selling T-shirts and being Boston Strong -- and all down to this wretched, bony boy in a hospital bed, this dollar-store Gavrilo Princip with a handsome head full of someone else's ideas, a man-child so panicked and stupid that he murdered his brother to try to get away.

Poetry about the condemned is an ancient tradition. I hope I'll read some that's better.
posted by Countess Elena at 2:40 PM on April 22, 2013 [9 favorites]


The defendant's appointed federal defense attorney (whose office is, uh, on Sleeper St. ...) is a Yale Law grad and speaks Russian.
posted by maggieb at 2:41 PM on April 22, 2013


You guys, if we're talking about Amanda Palmer, the poem wins. Stay strong.
posted by prize bull octorok at 2:41 PM on April 22, 2013 [14 favorites]


More like Amanda Face-Palmer, amirite?

(Maybe the sheer awfulness of what she wrote can quell the snippiness in this thread, as it unites us in bewilderment and aversion? Maybe? Guys?)
posted by evidenceofabsence at 2:42 PM on April 22, 2013 [6 favorites]


The Magistrate Judge advised him of his rights. He was told that he has the right to remain silent, that any statement he makes may be used against him in court, that he can consult with an attorney before any questioning, that he may have an attorney present during questioning, that counsel would be appointed without charge if he could not afford counsel, and then the judge reiterated that he does not have to answer any questions asked by law enforcement agents or the Assistant U.S. Attorney.

So, that's good.
posted by Area Man at 2:45 PM on April 22, 2013 [9 favorites]


Given that it's a poem about an incomprehensible act of cruelty, it does feel like she's at least connected with her subject.
posted by Holy Zarquon's Singing Fish at 2:46 PM on April 22, 2013 [8 favorites]


That Amanda Palmer poem's a little heavy on the anaphora.

The old bastard should stick to golf.
posted by Trochanter at 2:49 PM on April 22, 2013 [4 favorites]


John McCain and Lindsey Graham are shooting from the hip to get political points for their future. McCain increasingly has to look conservative since his fall-from-the-graces of the republican party. I don't know if I've heard much sanity from him since he lost in 2008. Feel free to cite some sane things from him - seriously - my prior faith in him is gone. Sooner, rather than later, he is going to face a republican primary in 2016, and the man hasn't delivered much that republicans have wanted. He wanted immigration reform so it quells the issue and he can maintain face in a increasingly diverse state. Now he has to push tough on terror slogans so that he doesn't alienate the republicans in his state. Moreover, if he does it, the republican party also can say stuff about his POW badge of honor - something while legitimate has been manhandled and re-messaged to the point where I can't follow whether the man is for or against torture. Given the success of Guantanamo Bay and Military Tribunals thus far, right now it sounds like he's pro torture - or at least refuses to acknowledge its torture if he can't see the victim while it is happening.

Similarly, Lindsey Graham is looking to further his career, but in order to do so he has to show his leadership qualities to folks outside his state. Plus, that's the best way to get big donations from major contributors. He's gotta be thinking about a presidential run at some point (my bet: 2020 - he'll be 65) and he needs to establish himself as the star courtesan of the republican party before then. (Why yes, I'm tough on terror, easy on smoking and gun control, I love big oil, don't care much about those who would benefit from a hand up since there are church groups, love god, and whatever else will get you to write a big check to my election campaign.)

With both as senior Senators this seemingly has some weight behind it, but in reality they're also playing a different political game - waste Obama's time as a non-lame duck president. Hijack his agenda with today's topic du jor and prevent Obama from having the legacy he wants.
posted by Nanukthedog at 2:50 PM on April 22, 2013


Was that really MetaFilter's Own Amanda Palmer?
posted by UbuRoivas at 2:53 PM on April 22, 2013


My heart aches, and a drowsy numbness pains
my sense, as though of hemlock I had drunk;
or emptied some dull opiate to the drains
one minute past, and Lethe-wards had sunk;
'tis not through envy of thy happy lot,
but being too happy in thine happiness,
that thou, a dryad singing with full throat,
in some melodious plot
of beechen green, and shadows numberless,
hast never read what Mandy Palmer wrote.
posted by Rustic Etruscan at 2:53 PM on April 22, 2013 [10 favorites]


except to say that with hindsight things turned out largely as I expected.

People took measures different from the ones you would have. Things turned the way you expected. It sounds like you are saying you were right, but it ignores the very genuine possibility that they wouldn't have turned out the same way had they not taken those measures.

It's difficult (impossible?) to say how things would have turned out had people acted differently, but to try and claim insight like that is really weak arguing.

(And now I go back and re-read the comment I'm responding to, to see if I've missed anything, and see you ended with "Besides, people are used to spending days indoors, so it's not a big deal. It sounds almost like fun." and realize I really don't give a shit what you think.)
posted by benito.strauss at 3:00 PM on April 22, 2013 [3 favorites]


The only person I want writing a poem about this might, MIGHT be Gordon Lightfoot. Other than that, nope.
posted by St. Alia of the Bunnies at 3:00 PM on April 22, 2013 [1 favorite]




The only person I want writing a poem about this might, MIGHT be Gordon Lightfoot. Other than that, nope.

In his tough-guy mode a la Sundown, something more lyrical like If You Could Read My Mind, or in his historical storytelling mode like The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald or the Canadian Railroad Trilogy?
posted by Area Man at 3:08 PM on April 22, 2013 [7 favorites]


People took measures different from the ones you would have. Things turned the way you expected. It sounds like you are saying you were right, but it ignores the very genuine possibility that they wouldn't have turned out the same way had they not taken those measures.

It's a good thing I'm not in charge of security forces; I might have blood on my hands. It's good that things turned out as they did, including even the fact that the perpetrator wasn't killed.

I assume that the top forensic & criminal psychologists and terrorism experts were engaged on this, that they advised the relevant police authorities, and that the authorities acted in accordance with that advice. One couldn't ask for any more than that.
posted by UbuRoivas at 3:12 PM on April 22, 2013


Finally, I managed to reach the end of this.
Good Bostonians - I hope you are OK after the shock of all this.

Once, my neighborhood was locked down for several days and I've had nightmares several times since then about being ghettoized for ever. The lock-down in it self wasn't bad, nor was the police intent of searching every home. No one ever got into my home, but that is not the point of my nightmares.
It was the total lack of agency in the everyday life of going to work and school, shopping. Everything was police-controlled. Still, I think it was the only thing to do in that situation, even as I was more on the side of the perpetrators than of the police in that specific case.
posted by mumimor at 3:20 PM on April 22, 2013 [1 favorite]


see you ended with "Besides, people are used to spending days indoors, so it's not a big deal. It sounds almost like fun." and realize I really don't give a shit what you think.

Dude, that's what Bostonites keep saying! "This happens all the time! We always have days off! It's no big deal!". Sorry if I misinterpreted those statements to mean that it's not a big deal to spend a day indoors while the tens of thousands of heavily armed cops look after people's safety.
posted by UbuRoivas at 3:22 PM on April 22, 2013


"After some reflection we want to share our thoughts about the reddit activity during the recent crisis in Boston. We all need to look at what happened and make sure that in the future we do everything we can to help and not hinder crisis situations."

- Reflections on the Recent Boston Crisis

apologies and delete if repeat link ... i didn't see it but there's a lotta comments ...
posted by mrgrimm at 3:23 PM on April 22, 2013 [2 favorites]


So, effectively, our civil liberties faction is out to the left of the ACLU. Look, I'll just speak to style again. It isn't that there aren't concerns here, but one poster took the tack that "HEY THIS IS LIKE MARTIAL LAW WHY AREN'T YOU UP IN ARMS" as if we had no choice but to agree or be part of the end of the American experiment, and while another poster has been somewhat more nuanced, has still posted numerous long screeds with bolded highlights with a similar level of insistence, if less vehemence. (Beyond these, others have presented arguments fairly and without significant rancor.) If either of these had been presented more as "You know, this is a potential issue here and I would like to know more about what the actual constitutional issues are, what experts think, and if there is more solid information about the searches" that would not have gotten hackles up to nearly the same extent.

One of the early posts in this vein referred to the "optics" as a problem. This is a political term, a bit of wonk jargon -- and that's appropriate. This problem is one that raises political and policy concerns, even if there are few solid legal and constitutional issues in play. The people of Watertown are free to select a city government that will hire a police chief who will, next time, use a lighter hand. But the very fact that nobody seems to have been arrested as a result of these searches means that there isn't any way to activate the Fourth Amendment. As a general principle, sure, but general principles are again the realm of politics.

This isn't -- wasn't, and won't be -- a free pass to cops to just deprive people of their rights, barge into their houses at will, arrest them without attention to procedure, and lock them away in a dark cell. At least I don't see that, and unless we now get an epidemic, Columbine-style, of over-the-top mass casualty events by disaffected youngsters and loners, we probably won't often see its like again. Heck, I saw that one of the cops in the shootout was described as being on three weeks of desk duty -- because every single one is being handled under normal weapon discharge procedure. Sure doesn't sound like a police force acting like it's legally unshackled.

You know, I love the sheriff played by Tommy Lee Jones in No Country for Old Men, a fictional depiction of an almost extinct breed of unarmed lawman. The idea of a "peace officer" is attractive, a man whose badge is all the protection he needs and all the symbolic atavar of the constitutional state that he needs. But I don't know that we'll ever see that again in a country where every third household has a gun and often multiple guns. Even as violent crime declines, police injuries and deaths are increasing in domestic incidents and now represent more than half of all annual cop killings -- and this is the type of policing that we're calling for more of.
posted by dhartung at 3:24 PM on April 22, 2013 [4 favorites]


people always want to pluralize things.
Ahem. I believe you mean peoples.
posted by Flunkie at 3:26 PM on April 22, 2013 [5 favorites]


Dude, that's what Bostonites keep saying!

I don't really want to get involved in this, because tensions are high in here and it's been a rough week -- the Tsarnaevs lived across the street from one of my best friends; the boat was around the corner from another good friend, and my dad, a non-trauma physician who was incidentally on call on Marathon Monday ended up on the front lines for the bomb victims, so this all hits pretty close to home -- but I can't stand by and just watch any more.

Please.

For the love of god

It's "Bostonians."
posted by oinopaponton at 3:27 PM on April 22, 2013 [51 favorites]


Unless you mean "Bostonian mefites," in which case that's adorable.
posted by oinopaponton at 3:28 PM on April 22, 2013 [29 favorites]


that's what Bostonites keep saying! ... Sorry if I misinterpreted those statements to mean that it's not a big deal to spend a day indoors while the tens of thousands of heavily armed cops look after people's safety.

a) The gov't telling people to stay indoors in unprecedented.
b) Not unprecedented. It happens due to weather emergencies every so often.
c) There is no difference between staying indoors for weather emergencies and staying indoors because of people running around and throwing bombs.

Some people said (a). There were multiple responses of (b). You turned that into (c). I sure can't tell you to stop your dramatic style of logic. All I can really say is that it bothers me.
posted by benito.strauss at 3:38 PM on April 22, 2013 [1 favorite]


I thought ya'll were called "Bostones"
posted by drezdn at 3:38 PM on April 22, 2013 [1 favorite]


localroger: "I guess I'll have to stop complaining that Saddam didn't have WMD's then, zarq.

Didn't read the link, huh?


I don't see anything there that changes the stitation. I'm sorry, but using a term of art that originated to describe nuclear weapons, war gas, and plague vectors to IED's with five ounces of propellant simply makes the term of art meaningless.
posted by localroger at 3:39 PM on April 22, 2013 [2 favorites]


You guys, if we're talking about Amanda Palmer, the poem wins. Stay strong.

Lexington Strong.
posted by threeants at 3:40 PM on April 22, 2013 [2 favorites]


I thought ya'll were called "Bostones"

Only those who are mighty twice over.
posted by cortex at 3:42 PM on April 22, 2013 [20 favorites]


I thought ya'll were called "Bostones"

Only if we're mighty mighty.

So they were chasing just Dzokhar. I had my own opinion about the ongoing threat to the public from him, and will keep it to myself except to say that with hindsight things turned out largely as I expected. At the time he was on the run, though, it's understandable that with so many unknowns it would have seemed dangerous, so best to mitigate that risk.

No one can know what might have happened. It does appear, though, that he had plenty of ammunition left at the end that he exchanged with cops. I'm glad that's the way it went down, instead of him unloading his weapon on a city bus or in a Dunkin Donuts. I don't think we can be terribly blase that, on his own, he wasn't a hazard and couldn't have killed a dozen or more additional people.
posted by Miko at 3:42 PM on April 22, 2013 [3 favorites]


Unless you mean "Bostonian mefites,"...

I think I'd opt for "BoFites". Which, combined with the name "MeFikers" adopted by some of the local MeFites who go hiking together, leads to "BoFite MeFikers", which sounds like some variant of Ubbi Dubbi.
posted by benito.strauss at 3:43 PM on April 22, 2013 [5 favorites]


Bostonishers.
posted by Joe in Australia at 3:45 PM on April 22, 2013 [1 favorite]


Relevant Bosstones
posted by prize bull octorok at 3:47 PM on April 22, 2013 [2 favorites]


I'm sorry, but using a term of art that originated to describe nuclear weapons, war gas, and plague vectors to IED's with five ounces of propellant simply makes the term of art meaningless.

Is it really so utterly unthinkable that a term might have a civilian definition that varies from its military definition?

(No, of course it's not, which is how we know you're being disingenuous.)
posted by dersins at 3:48 PM on April 22, 2013


I'm not a Bostonite or a Bosstone or a Bostonian. I realized I was overidentifying with my "we". I don't live in Boston, to be clear, I'm about 15 miles away.
posted by Miko at 3:49 PM on April 22, 2013


Bostonishment: The surprise of a provincial upon seeing New York City.
posted by Rustic Etruscan at 3:50 PM on April 22, 2013 [5 favorites]


Watertown Man Flooded* With Offers to Fix, Replace His Beloved Boat
*I see what you did there, Boston Magazine
posted by Dr. Zira at 3:56 PM on April 22, 2013 [3 favorites]


Well, technically, I'm not a Bostonian either.

I am a West Fenwickian.

The Eastern Fens? Horrible place. I try no to go there.

/For those of you who don't know Boston, it's a difference of at most 20 rods. Oh, sorry, I probably should have said "about half a furlong".
posted by benito.strauss at 3:58 PM on April 22, 2013 [4 favorites]


The Fiscal Times estimates that the lockdown of Boston likely cost the city $1 billion dollars in lost economic activity. This figure is nothing to sneeze at, especially when terrorist groups might begin leveraging their efforts to cause as much economic impact as possible.
posted by nickyskye at 3:58 PM on April 22, 2013 [2 favorites]


Rachel Maddow did a segment on one of the 9/11 anniversaries where she went through some of OBL's press releases since the attack. She made the point that he spent a lot of time talking about how much he had cost us in terms of lost productivity, expenditures on security, prisons and investigation, the wars, and what have you -- and she pointed out that for Osama it was all about Return On Investment. He had spent a relative pittance and cost us billions. He won.

The Marathon Bombing is subject to a similar analysis. The bombers spent less than $1,000 to assemble their IED's and we responded by mobilizing thousands of cops, shutting down a major city, and generally freaking out literally millions of people for almost a week. I really think it's a bad idea to give potential imitators the idea that that will work reliably.
posted by localroger at 4:05 PM on April 22, 2013 [5 favorites]


*I see what you did there, Boston Magazine

Even better (or worse): the boat is named the Slip Away II.
posted by evidenceofabsence at 4:10 PM on April 22, 2013 [1 favorite]


It's hard to take that blog estimate seriously, though. People who didn't buy groceries Friday bought them Saturday instead. People whose work didn't open will probably make up those hours. Orders will get fulfilled. If we're going to start using arguments like this, we may as well use them against events like the Boston Marathon itself.

Historically, guerrilla and rebel groups that have used economic disruption have preferred more direct action (e.g. WTC). The fact that OBL was among those playing a long game should be obvious, but it's success only in a narrow sense. I doubt many people in the Tsarnayev league are even thinking in those terms anyway.
posted by dhartung at 4:11 PM on April 22, 2013 [3 favorites]


We spent money. He's dead. He didn't win.
posted by feste at 4:11 PM on April 22, 2013


Having just gotten a clearer head from cycling in to work, and without having read anything since my last comment yet, I apologise unreservedly for that comment about making a fun day of it with whisky, Scrabble & cigars.

Totally not appropriate, and not how I would have reacted to an unfolding violent crisis like that, and not like I'd expect anybody else to, either. Honestly sorry again.
posted by UbuRoivas at 4:13 PM on April 22, 2013 [6 favorites]


Is it really so utterly unthinkable that a term might have a civilian definition that varies from its military definition?

Actually I find that pretty stupid. The phrase either has a meaning or it doesn't. I see no sensible reason why its meaning should be different for civilians and soldiers. Mass murder isn't less mass if a person in uniform does it.
posted by localroger at 4:15 PM on April 22, 2013 [4 favorites]


Slate: Why We Should Judge Breaking News Like Baseball


Dr. Zira: "Watertown Man Flooded* With Offers to Fix, Replace His Beloved Boat
*I see what you did there, Boston Magazine
"
After David Henneberry’s boat, the “Slip Away II*,
*I see what you did there, David Henneberry.
On preview, I see evidenceofabsence beat me to it!
posted by Room 641-A at 4:15 PM on April 22, 2013


The Marathon Bombing is subject to a similar analysis. The bombers spent less than $1,000 to assemble their IED's and we responded by mobilizing thousands of cops, shutting down a major city, and generally freaking out literally millions of people for almost a week. I really think it's a bad idea to give potential imitators the idea that that will work reliably.

What are the options? (I'm asking seriously.) Other places that have or have had terrorist bombings, and where the bombers have been identified and are actively being chased, what happens? How do authorities in other places handle that? My recollection of the London Tube bombings was that various transit lines - not just the Tube but buses as well - were stopped, and possibly neighborhoods right around the bombing sites were evacuated.

So, yeah, what do other places do? Especially when it's a case like this one, where the bombers are known and have been sort of found and are being chased?
posted by rtha at 4:15 PM on April 22, 2013


our civil liberties faction is out to the left of the ACLU

Civil liberties are not a partisan political issue. I am curious why you think that worrying about civil liberties is a "lefty" preoccupation.

Is it really so utterly unthinkable that a term might have a civilian definition that varies from its military definition?

Listen you can pretend that the term "weapons of mass destruction" doesn't come prepackaged with a lot of baggage and rhetorical meaning, but that would simply be ignoring reality...which I guess would make you the one being disingenuous.
posted by AElfwine Evenstar at 4:16 PM on April 22, 2013 [3 favorites]


We spent money. He's dead. He didn't win.

At the time Maddow was making the remarks he was very much alive and nobody had much of a clue where he was. Whether we've won now depends on how much value OBL assigned to his own life. I'd bet if you could get a shout out to him in Hell he'd say he won.
posted by localroger at 4:16 PM on April 22, 2013 [2 favorites]


Do you think it's better to spend money in order to save lives?
posted by feste at 4:18 PM on April 22, 2013


She made the point that he spent a lot of time talking about how much he had cost us in terms of lost productivity, expenditures on security, prisons and investigation, the wars, and what have you -- and she pointed out that for Osama it was all about Return On Investment. He had spent a relative pittance and cost us billions. He won.

You know, people keep saying this, and I've never understood it, and I'm a pretty strong critic of a lot of the waste in the national security state (indeed, I think this case, where we failed to stop someone who had already been flagged by a foreign government and investigated by the FBI, strongly illustrates that the idea of combing emails and call data for trends is unlikely to lead to anything useful). But terrorists don't usually have the general goal of "creating terror," they have very specific aims. They "win" when US troops leave Saudi Arabia, or Northern Ireland is reunited with Ireland, or whatever. We wasted a ton of money after 9/11--no question--but Osama is dead, the caliphate has not been established, and the US still supports Israel. How is that a victory?
posted by dsfan at 4:19 PM on April 22, 2013


Now if your argument is that it was a waste of lives and money and self-respect and many other important things to go to war in Afghanistan and Iraq, I totally agree. But the money is the least of these.
posted by feste at 4:24 PM on April 22, 2013


We wasted a ton of money after 9/11--no question--but Osama is dead, the caliphate has not been established, and the US still supports Israel. How is that a victory?

It is possible for bin Laden to lose and the American public lose at the same time the plutocracy is winning. I wouldn't exactly call the patriot act, the military commissions act of 2006, and the NDAA FY 2012 a victory.
posted by AElfwine Evenstar at 4:26 PM on April 22, 2013 [5 favorites]


/r/TheoryOfReddit (an unofficial "meta-reddit") discusses /r/FindTheBostonBombers
posted by ChurchHatesTucker at 4:26 PM on April 22, 2013


Popping back in after cooling my head a bit.

The actual estimate for fiscal loss on Friday is $333 million. I believe that's from the Mayor's office, anyhow, that's the official figure. Yes, that's a big deal and certainly played in to the city lifting the shelter in place order before LE was ready and part of that, if not most, would have been lost anyway due to the MBTA shutting down (which happened hours earlier) and businesses independently deciding to close.

I was out this weekend and the city was PACKED. Friends in Watertown reported lines around the block at local restaurants. It was a sunny weekend, but cold and windy, and the streets were absolutely jammed. People understand how much this cost local businesses and are doing our best to support them now that the crisis is over. The really hard hit are businesses on Boylston St which have been closed for a week now and won't open for another two days, minimum. Especially since this area is partly dependent on tourist traffic and Marathon week is huge for them.

The financial impact definitely comes into play in the decision making process, but it's only one factor and one missed day can easily be made up over the course of the rest of the year.

If we're now going to move on to talking about OBL, I'll probably step back out as I'm personally interested in the events in Boston and not a far flung analysis of Every Horrible Thing That Has Ever Happened.
posted by sonika at 4:27 PM on April 22, 2013 [5 favorites]


Thanks, UbuR, I appreciate it, by my green candle!
posted by benito.strauss at 4:28 PM on April 22, 2013 [1 favorite]


Please. For the love of god. It's "Bostonians."
posted by oinopaponton

I thought ya'll were called "Bostones"
posted by drezdn

Bostonishers.
posted by Joe in Australia




....I'm originally from Connecticut. this has been amusing me like you wouldn't believe.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 4:28 PM on April 22, 2013 [1 favorite]


Civil liberties are not a partisan political issue. I am curious why you think that worrying about civil liberties is a "lefty" preoccupation.

Oh please. It is a turn of phrase. I might have been more accurate to say libertarian, for example, but that would probably confuse more readers as there are significant differences between civil libertarian and the Libertarian Party (and the libertarian wing of the Republican Party). Why is everyone arguing so tendentiously?! I was asking people not to do that. Can we get back to actual facts and actual constitutional arguments, both of which I'm perfectly willing to discuss?

How is that a victory?

The only sense I can see is the effective chess-style "pin" of hundreds of thousands of US troops in the very areas where Islamist radicals could more effectively kill them, i.e. Iraq and Afghanistan (and to a lesser extent places like Pakistan). More generally, you could see the spread of AQ-halo ideas and at the fringe you find "grassroots" acts like this, which would probably have pleased Osama. But it's not much of a victory in nation-state terms at all -- meaning, if anything, that OBL is diametrically engaged in anything but nation-state terms. So yes, that means there's a "both true" sort of end state, if you can't agree on the terms of what constitutes a victory.
posted by dhartung at 4:30 PM on April 22, 2013


We wasted a ton of money after 9/11--no question--but Osama is dead, the caliphate has not been established, and the US still supports Israel. How is that a victory?

How many more OBLs can we afford?


....I'm originally from Connecticut. this has been amusing me like you wouldn't believe.

I've always been fond of "Connecticutians" (with a long U)

posted by ChurchHatesTucker at 4:32 PM on April 22, 2013


I've always been fond of "Connecticutians" (with a long U)

Connecticuter: More closely resembling a character from the work of John Cheever.
posted by Rustic Etruscan at 4:34 PM on April 22, 2013


Living farther out on the Metro-North, I understand, is the deepest Connecticut of all.
posted by dhartung at 4:35 PM on April 22, 2013 [4 favorites]


Listen you can pretend that the term "weapons of mass destruction" doesn't come prepackaged with a lot of baggage and rhetorical meaning, but that would simply be ignoring reality...which I guess would make you the one being disingenuous.

How much baggage and rhetorical meaning did it carry in '94 when they changed law to include explosives? A bit, but not nearly as much as it does post Iraq.

It's also true that the prosecutor here doesn't decide what the charges are called, "weapon of mass destruction" is the legal term of art, has been for almost two decades, and is what's used in any similar federal cases, including Timothy McVeigh.
posted by Bulgaroktonos at 4:37 PM on April 22, 2013


A friend suggested "Connecticuties" or "Connecticutlery", the second of which I've actually adopted.

Although in some MeTa, someone - I wanna say Eideteker - coined "Nutmeggalos," which I have also adopted for special circumstances.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 4:43 PM on April 22, 2013 [13 favorites]


I'm not sure you can really make any kind of coherent financial argument about what we "lost" or "spent." Some businesses closed that day but will make it up later, as noted. Others will have a business loss to write off. A few reaped a whole lot of free PR (Dunks, I'm looking at you, it's like you were the Official Manhunt Sponsor for the amount of times I read your name in a news story). There may be a Boston tourism boost this summer. The T probably saved money by closing a day (I exaggerate only slightly). The overtime, supplies and ordnance represents state spending that ultimately is a form of economic activity. There is going to be some federal aid or other.

It's not a super easy story to say "The terrorists win if they cost you money." A sophisticated financial analysis of economic impact would probably be a lot more complicated.

Whoever said that ultimately, the plutocracy gets rich is right.
posted by Miko at 4:44 PM on April 22, 2013 [1 favorite]


A friend suggested "Connecticuties" or "Connecticutlery", the second of which I've actually adopted.

When I lived there I heard "Connecticutters" but a lot of people seem not to like that.
posted by Miko at 4:45 PM on April 22, 2013


Connecticuties? Or is that too late-nite chat line?
posted by evidenceofabsence at 4:46 PM on April 22, 2013


A friend suggested "Connecticuties" or "Connecticutlery", the second of which I've actually adopted.

When I lived there I heard "Connecticutters" but a lot of people seem not to like that.


Those people
posted by dhacker at 4:47 PM on April 22, 2013 [3 favorites]


It is the Land of Steady Habits after all.
posted by Miko at 4:47 PM on April 22, 2013 [1 favorite]


The Fiscal Times estimates that the lockdown of Boston likely cost the city $1 billion dollars in lost economic activity.

From what I hear, Boston had several extra drinks and meals over the weekend, so that $1 billion estimate may not be accurate.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 4:50 PM on April 22, 2013


When someone (I started to scroll back to see who, but I kind of gave up, sorry to that person) first mentioned the Amanda Palmer poem, I honestly thought they were trying to lighten things up by coming up with the most hilarious/appalling thing they could think of, and I thought they were pretty much geniuses: Amanda Palmer? Poem addressed to Dzhokhar Tsarnaev? *snort* Brilliant.

I'm interested too, in why a lot of people seem very interested in Tsarnaev (also raised by another person previously, but ditto on the scrolling and exhaustion - this is a long wordy thread). Part of it is, I think, the desire to see that justice is done despite how horrendous his actions are, that what happens to him now is a measure of our humanity. Part of it is because he sticks out in minds very prominently. The victims kind of slip off into a mish mash of 'the victims', maybe because it is just too awful to focus for too long on those poor people. I think we are a culture that tends to turns people into celebrities, too, even mass murderers.
posted by Kaleidoscope at 4:53 PM on April 22, 2013 [3 favorites]


From what I hear, Boston had several extra drinks and meals over the weekend, so that $1 billion estimate may not be accurate.

I made a jokey comment about my family having had 27 extra meals each, but decided to revise and say in all seriousness every. single. person. that I know in Boston (and a few in the 'burbs) went out this weekend and pretty much poured our pockets into the local economy. I mentioned it earlier, but it does bear repeating that the city is absolutely taking the financial aspect seriously and we're ready to eat our way into fiscal health.

I don't know if I saw it here or on Twitter, but the Watertown PD has been gifted so much food that they're having trouble getting rid of it all before it spoils.
posted by sonika at 4:58 PM on April 22, 2013 [4 favorites]


rtha: What are the options? (I'm asking seriously.) Other places that have or have had terrorist bombings, and where the bombers have been identified and are actively being chased, what happens? How do authorities in other places handle that? My recollection of the London Tube bombings was that various transit lines - not just the Tube but buses as well - were stopped, and possibly neighborhoods right around the bombing sites were evacuated.

So, yeah, what do other places do? Especially when it's a case like this one, where the bombers are known and have been sort of found and are being chased?


I think that the London tube/bus bombings are slightly different – I mean, in that case, you're talking about multiple almost-simultaneous bombs exploding on three underground train lines and one bus. I can imagine if the same thing happened in the New York subway or on BART in San Francisco, Oakland and the surrounding area, there would be a total shutdown, and rightly so. In terms of how, in general, it's handled in other areas or countries, it's maybe worth looking at how the IRA bombing campaign on the British mainland was handled by the authorities.* I don't know exact figures of how many bombs were set off between, say 1970 and 1998 – which was more or less the end of the Provisional IRA campaign on the mainland – but I'm pretty sure that there were plenty of them which were immediately investigated and followed up by chasing down the suspects. Now, some of those suspects may have been – or rather were – completely innocent dupes who were fitted up (for anyone who thinks that Reddit mistakenly ID-ing suspects and going mental about it are New Internet Revolutionaries, sorry, but the West Midlands Serious Crime Squad are 40 years ahead of you).

And these were suspects who were involved in an active, ongoing bombing campaign in which the most recent bomb to go off and kill/maim a bunch of Saturday shoppers was most definitely not the last.

There's a brilliant documentary called Death On The Rock which investigates the shooting dead of three IRA members who were suspected of planning to bomb the Changing Of The Guard in Gibraltar. From the wikipedia page:
The SAS were authorised to '. . . open fire against a person [only] if you or they have reasonable grounds for believing that he/she is currently committing, or is about to commit, an action which is likely to endanger your or their lives, or the life of any other person, and if there is no other way to prevent this.'[3]
The SAS stated that McCann had made an 'aggressive move' towards a bag he was carrying. They had presumed he was intending to trigger a car bomb using a remote control device. After McCann was killed, Farrell made a move towards her handbag and was killed on similar grounds. Faced with arrest, Savage moved his hand to his pocket, and the SAS also killed him. In all, McCann was shot five times, Farrell eight times, and Savage between 16 and 18 times. All three were subsequently found to be unarmed. Ingredients for a bomb, including 64 kilograms of Semtex, were later found in a car in Spain, identified by keys found in Farrell's handbag.[
This was a hugely controversial operation at the time, despite coming at the height of Thatcher's dominance of government; it also came in the aftermath of the investigation, by former Manchester Deputy Chief Constable John Stalker, of the government's Shoot to kill policy in Northern Ireland.

I mean, it's pretty fair to say that the authorities, when dealing with the IRA, didn't exactly cover themselves in glory, to put it mildly. But it's also fair to say that no matter how intense the IRA campaign got – and it was pretty fucking intense, at points – in no instance did they feel that, chasing suspects or not, they felt the need to lock down a huge British city.

(As an aside: I think that – as I posted in the MeTa thread here – a huge part of how people look at this is about the divergence between how people in countries which have had decades of dealing with this sort of terrorism, and especially how said terrorism is covered in the media, and countries in which it is a relatively new phenomenon, experienced through the relatively new medium of 24hr rolling news coverage, which was not about for those of us who remember (in my case) the IRA campaigns of decades previous.)



*how it was handled in Northern Ireland was entirely different, due to various factors, not least the heavy presence of the British Army, and their establishment of checkpoints for most civilians in all six counties
posted by Len at 5:06 PM on April 22, 2013 [2 favorites]


Why is everyone arguing so tendentiously?!

I wasn't arguing. I made a statement and asked a question. Thanks for clarifying your statement.

How much baggage and rhetorical meaning did it carry in '94

I would guess quite a bit having first been attested in the 1930's.
posted by AElfwine Evenstar at 5:10 PM on April 22, 2013 [1 favorite]


I'm interested too, in why a lot of people seem very interested in Tsarnaev

A quick list:

He's young
He's attractive
He's currently wounded/vulnerable but alive
Friends and acquaintances depict him as an innocent
He was a pothead
His behavior since Monday
The seeming lack of motivation

There's more of course -- the chorus of conspiracy theorists on Twitter aren't convinced that the photos are him, and the authorities have so far not released any concrete evidence (so far all we have are police testimony, surveillance footage of the brothers with backpacks, and a few still photos). Even taking that out of the equation, though -- assume for a second that they do release the surveillance footage clearly showing him dropping the bag at the scene and walking away before detonation -- I think that the list above is still sufficient enough to continue to foster general interest in him for some time to come.
posted by (Arsenio) Hall and (Warren) Oates at 5:11 PM on April 22, 2013 [3 favorites]


Len: "it's also fair to say that no matter how intense the IRA campaign got – and it was pretty fucking intense, at points – in no instance did they feel that, chasing suspects or not, they felt the need to lock down a huge British city."

This is a chain of argument I've not really understood: the position that "bombings are/were more common in country X, and yet they don't/didn't freak out about each one". It seems to me that it's precisely that "bombings are/were more common in country X, and therefore they don't/didn't freak out about one". If Boston bombings happened as often as IRA bombings did at their height, it seems to me there would be less shutdowns.
posted by Bugbread at 5:17 PM on April 22, 2013 [6 favorites]


I just had this memory: I was a kid, and my mom and I were in Dublin in 1976, on the night when the British ambassador was assassinated. There were tanks - actual tanks - in the streets.
posted by rtha at 5:24 PM on April 22, 2013 [1 favorite]


Len: "it's also fair to say that no matter how intense the IRA campaign got – and it was pretty fucking intense, at points – in no instance did they feel that, chasing suspects or not, they felt the need to lock down a huge British city."

This is a chain of argument I've not really understood: the position that "bombings are/were more common in country X, and yet they don't/didn't freak out about each one". It seems to me that it's precisely that "bombings are/were more common in country X, and therefore they don't/didn't freak out about one". If Boston bombings happened as often as IRA bombings did at their height, it seems to me there would be less shutdowns.


I think, in a way, that last sentence of yours is probably right. I can't speak for Americans voicing this opinion, but I think that this whole argument – as to whether the police were right to do what they did, whether it was an over-reaction, and so on – most certainly is, or can be, coloured by how your own country has dealt with terrorism and terrorist threats over the past few decades. As has been said previously (I think by unSane), after a certain point, you get blasé about it, because that's the only option which involves both staying sane and getting on with everyday life. (And to reiterate: the media is a huge part of that.)

After a while, you don't think "fucking hell, I can't believe they did that"; you think "oh, for fuck's sake, does this mean I have to take the Northern Line at rush hour? Christ."
posted by Len at 5:36 PM on April 22, 2013 [4 favorites]


I just had this memory: I was a kid, and my mom and I were in Dublin in 1976, on the night when the British ambassador was assassinated. There were tanks - actual tanks - in the streets.

Not that this is really related, but if we're swapping random Ireland + terrorism memories now, I remember being in Dublin, as a high schooler on a trip with my dad, when Bush sent the first planes to Iraq -- by way, unpopularly, of Ireland. It was really affirming to be in a place where people were equally dismayed and pissed about the war, shortly after having first found my political consciousness (I guess), by participating in the huge but ignored and mostly forgotten early protests against the Iraq War.
posted by threeants at 5:45 PM on April 22, 2013


rtha: I just had this memory: I was a kid, and my mom and I were in Dublin in 1976, on the night when the British ambassador was assassinated. There were tanks - actual tanks - in the streets.

Wow. Aforementioned British Ambassador to Ireland Christopher Ewart-Biggs has a fucking mental wikipedia pic. He looks like a Bond villain, complete with monocle.
posted by Len at 5:50 PM on April 22, 2013 [8 favorites]


Broken "Christopher Ewart-Biggs" link, Len.
posted by ChurchHatesTucker at 5:52 PM on April 22, 2013


Should be fixed now. But really, the pic is the important link.
posted by Len at 5:54 PM on April 22, 2013




"it's also fair to say that no matter how intense the IRA campaign got – and it was pretty fucking intense, at points – in no instance did they feel that, chasing suspects or not, they felt the need to lock down a huge British city."

Instead, they built giant walls down the middle of it. Yes, that's much better.

But, like, that was a war, with, you know, armies and shit. Not just a couple of dudes that could be rounded up in a couple of days with some simple cooperation from the public.
posted by Sys Rq at 5:57 PM on April 22, 2013


I am surprised more people haven't brought up this case:

Mohammed Merah, face of the new terrorism
posted by rosswald at 5:59 PM on April 22, 2013 [1 favorite]


I am surprised more people haven't brought up this case:

Why?
posted by (Arsenio) Hall and (Warren) Oates at 6:02 PM on April 22, 2013


That is a hell of a photo. (Of the ambassador.)
posted by rtha at 6:03 PM on April 22, 2013 [4 favorites]


Sys Rq: Instead, they built giant walls down the middle of it. Yes, that's much better.

That happened in cities in Northern Ireland. This is why I specifically said I was talking about the bombing campaign on mainland Britain, and not what was happening in Northern Ireland, which was vastly different for various reasons, some of which I mentioned previously. As far as I know, as troubled as various mainland British cities were in the 1970s and 1980s, no concrete dividing walls were built to separate one area from another.
posted by Len at 6:06 PM on April 22, 2013


I cannot shake the feeling that Ewart-Biggs is holding a white cat off-frame in that photo.
posted by localroger at 6:07 PM on April 22, 2013 [10 favorites]


I am surprised more people haven't brought up this case: Mohammed Merah

Why?


Self-radicalized naturalized immigrant, "Inspire" inspired, young, loose/no larger affiliation. It is a rough comparison I admit, but there are some similarities.
posted by rosswald at 6:09 PM on April 22, 2013 [2 favorites]


I came to post that Atlantic Wire piece above, because although as some of you know I work for the ACLU but we're under pretty strict instructions right now to not make any statements on behalf of the organization. As you can imagine, this is both a very complicated situation and one that is very important to get right. I am glad it was posted so folks can start to get a sense of our perspective to the extent that it has developed so far.

our civil liberties faction is out to the left of the ACLU

Please consider being careful with this. If you care about civil liberties, you don't serve them well by assigning a set of politics to them.
posted by rollbiz at 6:12 PM on April 22, 2013 [34 favorites]


Ya might want to stick to talking about Boston in a thread about Boston.

Totally get that you want to make larger points, just don't think they're really relevant to what actually happened in Boston.


You must mean the magical way that what happened in New York City on 911 wasn't relevant (and obviously had no influence) on the way the police behaved in Boston on Friday.

Yeah, the BPD and all the surrounding police departments for a 50 mile radius conjured up their 100 billion dollar military grade arsenal of armored vehicles, high powered automatic assault rifles 50 tons of Kevlar protection, armored helicopters, radiation detecting trucks, bomb sniffing dogs, drones etc...as well as their snazzy new tools, like something that pisses on the Fourth amendment while telling it is raining, called "Voluntary Lockdown" out of thin air...

It was magic.


And in the same way, what happened in Boston last week won't impact the rest of the country...no not to worry everyone in the rest of the country, Boston feels good about this, and if Boston feels good about this whole think the rest of youse busybodies worried about things like civil rights and improper search and seizure, and compromised protections and negation of Probable Cause and all that dreary STUFF. So "STFU."
posted by Skygazer at 6:16 PM on April 22, 2013 [3 favorites]


So...thinking again to the causes of terrorism: hurters gonna hurt. There's always going to be some tiny risk of an unbalanced person hurting people for no reason. But we can minimize the reasons terrorists cite in hurting our co-Americans. That doesn't mean instituting shariah law or banning books. It could be as easy as not killing random people in other countries. Is it any surprise that after deciding foreign civilians can be collateral in the so-called "War on Terror", the US finds that our opponents in such have defined our own civilians similarly? While it's yet to be seen to what extent these present attacks were ideological vs. personal, we need to press our own government hard to stop wreaking daily the kind of suffering that we've felt so acutely this week.

I say this not as a dispassionate observer; almost everyone I love lives in the communities that were locked down during the manhunt/firefight, and if the terrorists had been more advanced or numerous I could easily be one of those now in mourning.
posted by threeants at 6:16 PM on April 22, 2013 [4 favorites]


Ewart-Biggs had lost an eye in the Second World War, as the article notes. The very best way to become a badass.

There was some interesting reading from this -- Wikipedia notes that "Dublin launched a man-hunt involving 4,000 Gardaí and 2,000 soldiers", and further sources point out that although the Gardai had a unit of "heavy men" given carte blanche in their treatment of the IRA (in an era where prisoner beatings and torture were commonplace even in Europe), the IRA generally did not attack on Irish soil under "Standing Order No. 8" for public relations purposes. Factions of the IRA and the Gardai remain at odds to this day.

Sys Rq, the IRA, despite its name, was only in the barest sense "armies and shit" (the Provisional IRA was really playing homage to the original IRA of the Easter Rising, which was in many ways more recognizable as a military, and indeed became the core of the Irish army after independence). Even so, the whole Ewart-Biggs assassination brings in the name of an IRA dude who was gun-running from the US, i.e. with the monetary and logistical support from the other side of an ocean. Sure, as of Sunday even, we're pretty sure that wasn't happening with these guys -- but on Thursday, it was quite a different equation.

Merah is a good analogue, but really, there's been a slow arc toward these self-motivated loner terrorists for a while.

rollbiz -- answered above, I'm lefty and meant no disrespect or mischaracterization. It's a difficult row the ACLU has to hoe.
posted by dhartung at 6:19 PM on April 22, 2013 [1 favorite]


Boston feels good about this, and if Boston feels good about this whole think the rest of youse busybodies worried about things like civil rights and improper search and seizure, and compromised protections and negation of Probable Cause and all that dreary STUFF. So "STFU."

You're grossly oversimplifying every response to your arguments here. But that's your right, I guess.

I wonder what your take on the piece from The Atlantic looks like?
posted by youandiandaflame at 6:19 PM on April 22, 2013 [2 favorites]


About the "winning" thing -- if you look at yourself as a chess piece, rather than a player, then your job is not necessarily to personally survive the game. And you're not necessarily a failure if your player loses. You can say, I took out more than my share of my enemy's pieces, I have done my part.

It's clear this is how OBL felt, and its early days but starting to look like the Marathon Bombers had a similar outlook. Now if you're an individual with few resources and no training except your copy of the Anarchist's Cookbook, it's obviously you aren't going to personally take down the United States. But if you can spend $1,000, which you can actually manage to do, and cost your ideological enemy a million times what you spent, then you have certainly done well. Then it's a question of how many of you your player can muster. How many Boston-wide city shutdowns can we afford before it starts to hurt? A few hundred is not an unreasonable number for a suitably motivated prophet to hope to inspire in a country with a population of hundreds of millions.

This actually represents another very new rung on the ladder OBL carved out with 9/11. He got us to spend a lot more, of course, but also with a much greater investment in money, recruitment, and training. This was an amateur hour fiasco that we treated like the arrival of a Bond villain. We can't afford to do that very often, and it won't take many copycats to take us to that point we can't afford.

How should we handle it? How about treating it like any other case of a dirtbag who murdered a handful of people including a cop. Set up a perimeter, get the public keeping a wary eye, man the hotlines. We seem to think that's good enough for people who killed a lot more people than these losers managed to.
posted by localroger at 6:21 PM on April 22, 2013 [5 favorites]


It could be as easy as not killing random people in other countries.

Yep. A little less of STFU and a whole lot more of STFH.
posted by de at 6:21 PM on April 22, 2013


(As usual, regular people suffer for the destructive actions of our leaders. Did Martin Richard vote for aggressive US foreign policy that radicalizes disgruntled people abroad into terrorists? No. Neither did Lingzi Lu. And I don't know how Krystle Campbell [rest in peace all] voted but I doubt she exactly had the President's ear on matters of policy.)
posted by threeants at 6:27 PM on April 22, 2013 [6 favorites]


Skygazer,

Others agree that civil rights are important, but haven't seen evidence they were violated. The lockdown was voluntary and the legality of individual searches will depend on the actual circumstances of each swarch. You seem to be unwilling to actually grapple with the arguments made by others. The fact that police were in armor in the streets is not actually proof that rights were violated.
posted by Area Man at 6:34 PM on April 22, 2013 [7 favorites]


As an addendum, on second thought, despite not being privy to Campbell's [again, rest in peace] voting preferences I know for a fact that she never voted for this foreign policy. I know this because there has never been a public referendum on drones, the Iraq War, the Afghanistan War, or other central decisions pertaining to today's American foreign policy, and there have been almost no realistically viable candidates for national office for whom she could have voted who have been willing to put energy and political capital into opposing said decisions.
posted by threeants at 6:35 PM on April 22, 2013 [3 favorites]


Mod note: comment removed - Skygazer, maybe dial it back a little bit please?
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 6:39 PM on April 22, 2013 [3 favorites]


Chechan president, too harsh:
"Any attempt to make the connection between Chechnya and the Tsarnaevs, if they are guilty, will be in vain. They grew up in the United States; their attitudes and beliefs were formed there. It is necessary to seek the roots of this evil in America."
US president, too subtle:
"there are still many unanswered questions. Why did young men who grew up and studied here as part of our communities and our country resort to such violence?"
Nanukthedog, just right:
Marathon Monday was not [an accident]. It was intentional for a reason that we all will never fully understand. At the root of it though is the fact that we failed to sit down and listen to a voice and maybe find some common ground for us to be brothers instead of enemies.
posted by de at 6:47 PM on April 22, 2013 [4 favorites]


Hey, jump in, Canada. The water's ...hot.
posted by Miko at 6:53 PM on April 22, 2013


The fact that police were in armor in the streets is not actually proof that rights were violated.

Skygazer may be coming on a bit strong, but that's not his argument as I read it. His argument is that regardless of whether civil liberties were in fact violated the fiasco in Boston serves to normalize these types of police actions and desensitize the American public so that when the time comes to actually violate our civil rights there isn't that much push back. I could be wrong, but that's how I'm reading it.

there have been almost no realistically viable candidates for national office for whom she could have voted who have been willing to put energy and political capital into opposing said decisions.

And there never will be until the American people are able to break the strangle hold that the current two party system has on our democratic institutions.
posted by AElfwine Evenstar at 6:56 PM on April 22, 2013 [6 favorites]


The Royal Canadian Mounted Police on Monday announced the arrest of two men who are accused of planning to derail a passenger train in an Al Qaeda-linked plot.

Pfft. They planned to derail a VIA train? Thanks for the help, boys, but VIA can manage that just fine on their own.
posted by Sys Rq at 6:57 PM on April 22, 2013 [3 favorites]


There is a piece of this that is bugging me right now. Why does LE think the bomber brothers killed Officer Collier? Collier was found close to the 7/11 that was robbed (but not by the bombers.) They carjacked the SUV sort of nearby and within a close time frame. Is that all there is so far? I assume the forensic evidence has yet to be examined because such things take time. Have any of the reports mentioned pertinent radio traffic from Officer Collier or suspicious evidence found or anything more than all this going down in a close time/space scenario?
posted by maggieb at 6:58 PM on April 22, 2013


rollbiz -- answered above, I'm lefty and meant no disrespect or mischaracterization. It's a difficult row the ACLU has to hoe.

Apologies, I missed that.
posted by rollbiz at 6:58 PM on April 22, 2013


There is a piece of this that is bugging me right now. Why does LE think the bomber brothers killed Officer Collier? Collier was found close to the 7/11 that was robbed (but not by the bombers.) They carjacked the SUV sort of nearby and within a close time frame. Is that all there is so far?

It's my understanding they've based this on surveillance video from the scene. That's the prominent front to a pretty major MIT building, so I'm sure footage exists.
posted by rollbiz at 7:00 PM on April 22, 2013 [4 favorites]


I made the mistake of listening to the live press conference with the RCMP et. al. this afternoon. After getting through all the mutual congratulations for everyone involved, they finally described the plot, but assured everyone repeatedly that while the accused were certainly seriously motivated to varry things out, the public was never in any imminent danger.

It sounds like a plot that could have been pretty awful if it had actually come to pass, but gosh, why choose today of all days to announce it? It couldn't just be the one week anniversary of the Boston bombing. What else could possibly have -- oh:
... word of the arrests came the same day that the Commons debated further steps to give authorities even broader powers to investigate potential terror cells but at the possible expense of civil liberties.

The Combating Terrorism Act would renew powers introduced after the terror attacks of 9/11 but had lapsed under a sunset clause. This includes giving police the power to preventively arrest people without a warrant. It would allow investigative hearings that would force people with potential knowledge of a terrorism offence to tell what they know.
posted by maudlin at 7:05 PM on April 22, 2013 [6 favorites]


man I wanna talk about how bad this new development is

A Poem For Amanda

you don't know why people aren't paying more attention to you.
you don't know why people aren't paying more attention to you.
you don't know why people aren't paying more attention to you.
you don't know why people aren't paying more attention to you.
you don't know why people aren't paying more attention to you.
you don't know why people aren't paying more attention to you.
posted by Homeboy Trouble at 7:11 PM on April 22, 2013 [19 favorites]


Part of it is, I think, the desire to see that justice is done despite how horrendous his actions are, that what happens to him now is a measure of our humanity. Part of it is because he sticks out in minds very prominently. The victims kind of slip off into a mish mash of 'the victims', maybe because it is just too awful to focus for too long on those poor people.

I think another major factor is people's desire to understand the motivations behind the act, because as much as people tend to confuse empathy with compassion, empathy should not be viewed as a weakness in cases like this (and compassion, for that matter, might not be either, but that's a different argument), but as one of the human brain's most powerful reality-modeling tools.

Empathy is just about the only tool we have for grappling with and trying to understand the vagaries that drive most of human behavior, so it's really pretty damn important we try to understand (not identify with, not condone, not sympathize with, but understand) the emotional motivators that drive guys like this to do awful things like this. Bringing just the right amount of empathy to bear on our analysis in cases like this can improve our ability to predict future events. Empathy's not just the namby-pamby, touchy-feely stuff it's sometimes made out to be by some talking heads and would-be manly-men. It's a set of fundamental mental capabilities and powerful tools for understanding the world and predicting the future.

I think we are a culture that tends to turns people into celebrities, too, even mass murderers.

Now you really are trying to arouse my pity for the guy, aren't you? As quickly as we turn on our celebrities, deprive them of any privacy, objectify them, and denigrate them, if there is a hell, I imagine for anyone who isn't also a pathological narcissist, it'd be a lot like being a celebrity in America today.
posted by saulgoodman at 7:13 PM on April 22, 2013 [6 favorites]


Man, I keep wishing someone would make an FPP for that poem. It's not really a "part of the existing thread" thing, so it seems like it would be OK for an FPP.
posted by Bugbread at 7:14 PM on April 22, 2013 [2 favorites]


no, that would just make more people read it and no people should read it
posted by sweetkid at 7:16 PM on April 22, 2013 [27 favorites]


Okay look folks. A couple of things. First I'd like to apologize to all the Boston area folks here, I became carried away saying that I thought Boston seemed to be acting like a "docile cowering sheep." That was a really bad way to describe that whole event and seeing the streets so barren and only populated by Police-Soldiers. I also, wrote twice after that, that the people of the Boston area are the real heroes in this, not necessarily the police and that they should applaud themselves first.

I hope we can get past that now. Thanks.

+++++++++++++

I was in NYC when 911 happened and this city along with Guiliani and now Bloomberg did create a sort of de facto "hero class" out of the NYPD (when everyone knows the real heroes are the Firemen who ran toward the chaos and destruction, like so many fine people did in Boston last Monday. Those are the real heroes), and the NYPD has become an all powerful monster in this town that abuses civil liberties right and left. Even Bloomberg has called his private army.

Also, this idea that rights will only be stepped on or ignored "this one extra special instance" is a farce. Law enforcement NEVER puts a genie back in the bottle once a precedent or technique has been hardwired into it's culture and training techniques. PERIOD. Not without years of work and a Supreme Court order, and this last decade has been a disaster in that regard with LE getting greater and greater powers to search, and detain, and use force...on and on it goes...

And our Rights just get sorta become a fading memory....even while they're superficially touted as still being there....of course until you meet a cop who doesn't like you and you realize how entirely fucked you are...
posted by Skygazer at 7:21 PM on April 22, 2013 [4 favorites]


A Poem For Amanda

Why does everyone keep saying Amanda Palmer wrote "a poem" for Dzhokhar Tsarnaev? Doesn't anyone know the word "doggerel" anymore?
posted by saulgoodman at 7:23 PM on April 22, 2013 [4 favorites]


I was in NYC when 911 happened and this city along with Guiliani and now Bloomberg did create a sort of de facto "hero class" out of the NYPD (when everyone knows the real heroes are the Firemen who ran toward the chaos and destruction, like so many fine people did in Boston last Monday. Those are the real heroes...

I was in NYC when 911 happened too. Members of the NYPD also ran to help too.

I hear you on Bloomberg's abuses of power and I also agree that the NYPD has overstepped its bounds at times, but they didn't just sit around eating donuts 12 years ago either. Nor did the Boston police do so last week.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 7:26 PM on April 22, 2013 [4 favorites]


You know Skygazer, that's it's not so much what you say--I think most people here are pretty aware of these kinds of civil liberties issues, and are concerned about the militarization of the police--but it's the way you seem to suggest that no one else gets it. And you really have not addressed any of the many, many cogent, thoughtful responses to your posts.
posted by feste at 7:31 PM on April 22, 2013 [13 favorites]


As a one-time Amanda Palmer fan (before she tried to eat the entire Internet and it got all over her face) I'd note that she seems to have a standing interest in exploring the motives behind young mass murderers. Her song "Guitar Hero" is (or appears to be) about a school shooter. I would say that poem, though, is a great anti-testament to how awesome it is to be able to write whatever uninspired, inappropriate dreck you want...and then never show it to anyone ever.
posted by threeants at 7:39 PM on April 22, 2013 [2 favorites]


Boston feels good about this,

Just as one Bostonian, I'd like to draw the distinction that I don't feel like my rights were violated in this one specific instance as it played out in reality. I do not feel good about any of it. There's a bit of nuance between "This was completely ok" and "I understand the decisions and don't feel like my rights were compromised."

Another thing I was thinking of was that in hindsight, we know the shutdown lasted all day - and that feels extreme - but when it was announced, we all thought it would just be a few hours. The shutdown was not put in place "until 6PM" but rather "for the time being." Knowing the suspect was in Watertown, most of us figured it would be over by lunch. I was shocked when I woke up after a nap with my son and nothing had changed, status wise. So, yeah, had the Governor announced at 8AM "Boston will be shut down all day" you might have more people pushing back. And since looking at it from the outside knowing now that it was all day, it's easy to say "Why didn't you guys push back?" And really, it's because we didn't know.

And in the hour between when the lockdown was lifted and Tsarnaev was found, I would have been the first to call shenanigans on the whole thing - but when it was over I figured the lockdown kept him in the boat, which was a pain since it took all day to find him, but ultimately safer for the general public than if he'd been able to move freely. So that, for me, tipped the scales back to being ok with the shutdown from a public safety standpoint.

And if they hadn't found him, I'd be among many very, very pissed off Bostonians that we sacrificed a day of our time for nothing. Really the outcome being positive, for me, makes the difference between "allowing the investigation to proceed" and "law enforcement overreach." It probably shouldn't matter from a civil rights standpoint, but feeling like it was effective makes me more ok with it than feeling it was a colossal waste of time and energy.

Also, I do feel like it would have been more than justified to call the lockdown off sooner for the greater area and just leave the cordon in Watertown, but that's really neither here nor there.
posted by sonika at 7:57 PM on April 22, 2013 [7 favorites]


I don't think it's a co-incidence that the Elvis Impersonator Ricin Guy has not roused nearly as much fear.

FBI: No ricin found in home of Mississippi suspect
posted by homunculus at 8:12 PM on April 22, 2013 [1 favorite]


That Elvis impersonator guy seems like an unlikely suspect.
posted by nickyskye at 8:26 PM on April 22, 2013


I hope I'm not repeating anything, but I've been thinking of the civil liberties vs. individual rights issue since it was brought up here. There are a couple key factors that I think are viable reasons for discussion of this conflict:

- Specific incident vs. police state: Definitely, as a rule you don't want lockdown and government officials telling you to stay in your house or else you get shot. I absolutely agree. But here we're talking about a crime *in progress* and requesting (not demanding) that residents stay in their homes.

- Active vs. passive reaction: again, there was a crime in progress. In many incidents of terrorism (with a living perp) the chase faded out soon and then happened over a matter of weeks/days with a suspect gradually teased out, intercepted and arrested. In this case, the suspect was mid-rampage, armed with explosives, and out in public somewhere. Whether or not the police were there is initially inconsequential. If I had heard that the suspect was in my neighborhood my reaction would be to stay the fuck inside.

It's an interesting divide. On the one hand there are people who are all "Don't tread on me," don't force me to stay in my house, don't send armed officers to my home.

On the other hand there are many many people whose reactions have been, "I'm not leaving my house until they catch that lunatic."

There's talking and then there's walking your talk. I believe in certain things strongly, but I know that nothing is black and white and I can't say for certain what I'd stand up for in a life or death situation no matter the odds of life or death. I'm in favor of keeping a police state out of our communities as much as we can but I'm also not afraid to be told to stay safe while the uniformed police hunt down a killer in my neighborhood.
posted by bendy at 8:27 PM on April 22, 2013 [5 favorites]


but when it was announced, we all thought it would just be a few hours.

That's actually interesting to hear, because I was thinking the opposite, i.e. that they would keep it in place until they had their man or until public opinion turned against them. I was pleasantly surprised when this turned out not to be the case.
posted by rollbiz at 8:44 PM on April 22, 2013


I guess everyone I'd talked to shared my opinion of "Watertown's not that big, how long can this take?" Interesting that you thought the opposite. I suppose my sample of "people I know" isn't really big enough to be accurate in any meaningful way.
posted by sonika at 8:55 PM on April 22, 2013


Definitely, as a rule you don't want lockdown and government officials telling you to stay in your house or else you get shot.

Which is again, not what happened. Re-read bl1nk's account of biking around the affected area for the better part of the day, for example.

This is part of the reason it's so frustrating reading the whole civil liberties argument going on in this thread - there's a lot of assumptions going on about the nature of the lockdown that just aren't backed up by the actuality of what happened.
posted by Jilder at 8:59 PM on April 22, 2013 [6 favorites]


Just hypothetically, suppose we accepted the official story--that the so-called Boston Lockdown was voluntary. Would that even make a difference, or would we still need to argue about this forever?

(Friends, I fear I have just had a vision of our dystopian future: It's an image of people talking forever about whether or not a boot is stomping on a human face forever.)

I'm sorry--I know there are serious civil rights issues these days. But I'm just not sure this counts as one of them.

That Elvis impersonator guy seems like an unlikely suspect.

It looks like there's a real possibility he was framed as his defense claims. I hope authorities at least seriously look into that possibility. (Then again, maybe it's a double-fake-out, fake-framing conspiracy and he really is the guilty party--talk about grist for the conspiracy theorists' mill). Either way, I hope authorities in Mississippi don't end up convicting the guy on auto-pilot just because he's been diagnosed as bi-polar. I never really thought there'd be a direct connection found between the ricin attacks and the tragedy in Boston (though I did wonder for a minute there if there might not be some faddish internet thing related to Patriot's Day/Tax Day that might have helped inspire both, given the weirdly coincidental timing), but who could have imagined it would turn out to be something so--well, ridiculous.

A down-on-his-luck Elvis impersonator possibly framed by a former business partner? "Only in America," as another famous immigrant from the former USSR used to say.
posted by saulgoodman at 9:02 PM on April 22, 2013 [4 favorites]


I suppose my sample of "people I know" isn't really big enough to be accurate in any meaningful way.

Nor in any way is mine, for the record.
posted by rollbiz at 9:04 PM on April 22, 2013


Jilder - I never meant to make that assumption. I posted that text as an example of one viewpoint of the "lockdown." I had no intention of implying that that was a logical/realistic interpretation of what actually happened.
posted by bendy at 9:06 PM on April 22, 2013


Nor in any way is mine, for the record.

There are dozens of us. Dozens!

posted by sonika at 9:12 PM on April 22, 2013 [3 favorites]


And you really have not addressed any of the many, many cogent, thoughtful responses to your posts.

How so?
posted by Skygazer at 9:22 PM on April 22, 2013




Boston Art: Where marathon bomber #1 died

That was horrible and disgusting. I wish I could wash it off.
posted by meese at 9:48 PM on April 22, 2013 [23 favorites]


That Boston Art picture is one of the worst images I've seen from the whole thing.
posted by Ruki at 9:49 PM on April 22, 2013 [5 favorites]


Boston Art: Where marathon bomber #1 died

That was horrible and disgusting. I wish I could wash it off.


That's what the world sees.
posted by de at 9:58 PM on April 22, 2013 [5 favorites]


It is astonishing and wonderful to me -- and a strange sort of flexible strength of our system -- that two vigorous and athletic young terrorists, with a smart plan, lots of money, a huge arsenal of well-crafted bombs and high-powered assault rifles, familiarity with the target city, apparent paramilitary training, and the element of surprise, were only able to kill 3 people.
posted by msalt at 10:07 PM on April 22, 2013 [1 favorite]


It's doubtful they had any real training, msalt. It's remotely possible the elder brother might have gotten some training around the time of his trip to Russia, but I don't think there's any evidence these guys had any outside support. That seems to be the official line, and seems to square best with the facts we have.

Apparently, despite Dzokhar's being a college student, they didn't even understand how ATM machines work. From nickyskye's "11 Most Mystifying Things the Tsarnav Brothers Did" link above:
Not understand how ATMs work. After reaching the daily withdrawal limit at one ATM, the Tsarnaevs, apparently not realizing that the machines are part of an interconnected system, decided to try their luck at two different machines. The quest to find a working ATM was how they ended up, coincidentally, at a 7/11 in Cambridge around the same time it was the scene of an armed robbery, and were spotted on the store security camera.
posted by saulgoodman at 10:14 PM on April 22, 2013


that two vigorous and athletic young terrorists, with a smart plan, lots of money, a huge arsenal of well-crafted bombs and high-powered assault rifles, familiarity with the target city, apparent paramilitary training, and the element of surprise

I'd also disagree with "smart plan" and "lots of money."
posted by murfed13 at 10:16 PM on April 22, 2013 [3 favorites]


Also, I haven't seen any evidence they had "lots of money." They were running on a stolen credit card when they displayed their stunning ignorance of networked automated teller systems.
posted by saulgoodman at 10:17 PM on April 22, 2013


CNN Breaking News: "We see a dog, it is barking. It could be a K9 unit, we don't know. It is a dog."

‘This Is CNN?’ Stewart Destroys His Favorite Target After A Chaotic End To A Terrible Week In Boston
posted by homunculus at 10:19 PM on April 22, 2013 [2 favorites]


that two vigorous and athletic young terrorists, with a smart plan, lots of money, a huge arsenal of well-crafted bombs and high-powered assault rifles

Do we know the caliber and number of guns they had? Or where/how they were purchased?
posted by wensink at 10:23 PM on April 22, 2013


It is astonishing and wonderful to me -- and a strange sort of flexible strength of our system, that two vigorous and athletic young terrorists ... were only able to kill 3 people.

When I think about what the older brother did in the last shoot-out (from what I've gleaned from news stories), it seems like he wanted to die almost as much as he wanted to kill. I just think we were damned lucky.
posted by benito.strauss at 10:24 PM on April 22, 2013 [1 favorite]


We don't really know that the bombs were well-crafted, either. Do we even know anything about them, other than that they were made out of pressure cookers and filled with shrapnel? There's every indication that these are basically the sort of thing that a teenager can make after reading about it on the Internet .
posted by Joe in Australia at 10:41 PM on April 22, 2013 [5 favorites]


despite Dzokhar's being a college student, they didn't even understand how ATM machines work.

I don't think many college kids have the opportunity to learn that there's a cap on daily ATM withdrawals. After all, students are constrained by a lower cap: their balance.
posted by evidenceofabsence at 10:44 PM on April 22, 2013 [2 favorites]


Boston Art: Where marathon bomber #1 died

Despicable, disgusting. How dare that person presume to speak for me or anyone else in the US with such a repulsive sentiment.
posted by cairdeas at 10:51 PM on April 22, 2013 [4 favorites]


The criminal complaint linked above, http://legaltimes.typepad.com/files/marathon-complaint.pdf, describes the IEDs briefly (see pg 8-9.)
posted by maggieb at 10:51 PM on April 22, 2013 [1 favorite]


Boston Art: Where marathon bomber #1 died

Nationalism is our national religion.
Google tells me these words have never been said before, which surprises me.

Oh, I wanted to return to something (an unfinished/unposted comment, really) from last night.

And to hear that the victims are being charged by hospitals (or warned about coverage limits) is despicable.

I can understand how horrifying that seems from a non-US perspective, but a few points need to be made here. First of all, trauma hospitals have a duty of care -- anyone who appears, with an emergent, life-threatening condition, is entitled to all the care that hospital can give to keep them alive and somewhat healthy. Nobody is going without care because they are being billed. Second, billing is just the first step in our privatized health system, which is a blend of (mainly) non-profit hospitals with roots in religious communities but also many private hospitals, and only a very small number of publicly owned and operated hospitals. Step one is that the hospital bills, regardless of anyone's ability to pay. Step two is that the insurer of record pays the agreed rate (because most insurers and hospitals have bilateral agreements on what is charged for what procedure). If you're lucky the pay happens before the bill. If you have great insurance, say from your employer, you may even get 100% coverage of most things. If you have not-so-great insurance, you have a high deductible (bit you must pay before insurance kicks in) or high co-pays (part you pay per procedure/visit). Least favorable is public insurance, primarily Medicare (for seniors) and Medicaid (for the very poor). Those with the lousiest roll of the dice here are the working poor who can't afford private insurance themselves. There's also a situation where you can have decent insurance but go to a doctor/hospital who's "out of network" and end up paying more of your bill than if you had gone to a "preferred provider". The final, third-ish step here is that whatever you can't pay becomes a thing between you and the hospital. Now, the hospitals aren't funded by any NHS-equivalent, so they need somebody to pay. Either it's you, or they raise the amount everybody else pays. It's the reason for such ridiculously divergent outcomes for the financial burden of healthcare, such as people going bankrupt and losing their homes. If you have no way to actually pay the bill, though, it's common for hospitals to negotiate an amount you can pay and/or put you on a payment plan.

The one thing that will be most difficult, and where things like the One Boston Fund will come in, is rehabilitative care. Unless you have really superb insurance, it's not going to be there for all the $100+ days of staying in a hospital, even a rehab center, not to mention all the prosthetics and replacement prosthetics 3-5 years later and all the physical therapy and definitely not the psychological therapy (which our system is exceptionally bad at covering). Right now, though, they're getting care.

As Americans, we are accustomed to seeing a hospital bill as a fact of life, and yet also a kind of fiction, because what you personally pay can have very little to do with the numbers on the bill. It is definitely true that medical bills can hound people for years and prevent them from working themselves out of deep poverty or even send them there from a previous middle class existence, but this isn't really at least solely the hospitals' fault in most cases. It's just the stupid, sad and frequently unfair way our system works.
posted by dhartung at 11:05 PM on April 22, 2013 [6 favorites]




Nationalism is our national religion.
Google tells me these words have never been said before, which surprises me.


"American civil religion" - Google: About 519,000 results
American civil religion is a sociological theory that there exists a kind of religion of the United States, a nonsectarian faith with sacred symbols drawn from national history.
posted by benito.strauss at 11:20 PM on April 22, 2013 [3 favorites]




Democracy Now! Apartheid Regime Bomb Victim Father Michael Lapsley on Using Forgiveness to Heal From Tragedy
AMY GOODMAN: What would you say to the person who did this to you, whether you know who that person is or not?

FATHER MICHAEL LAPSLEY: Well, of course, Amy, that’s a speculative question. I think if the person doesn’t care about what happened to them—what they did to me and maybe to others, I’m not sure that I want to meet them. If, however, they’re a prisoner of what they did to me, I have a key, and I would be very open to using that key. And if they ask for my forgiveness, one of the things I might say to them: "Well, excuse me, sir, do you still make letter bombs?" And they say, "No, no, no. Actually I work at the local hospital." My response would be, "I forgive you. And I would prefer you spend the next 50 years working in that hospital, because I believe a thousand times more in the justice of restoration than the justice of punishment." So often when we say "justice," we mean punishment, if not revenge. But there’s another kind of justice: the justice of the journey of restoring relationships. But I might also say to them, "Well, yes, I have forgiven you, but I still only have one eye. I still have no hands. I’ll always need someone to assist me for the rest of my life. Of course, you will help pay for that person," so that reparation and restitution are also part of the journey of forgiveness.
posted by Golden Eternity at 11:42 PM on April 22, 2013 [19 favorites]


Thank you for linking that Golden Eternity.
posted by AElfwine Evenstar at 12:06 AM on April 23, 2013


Is this already up thread somewhere? April 22, 2013: Tamerlan Tsarnaev now linked to the Waltham murders.

Police probe possible link between Marathon bomber and unsolved triple homicide in Waltham.
posted by de at 1:40 AM on April 23, 2013 [3 favorites]


Coming back,
I agree with Jilder. The city was not "locked down" in any real sense, except maybe in Watertown, which is four square miles. People didn't go to work and the T was down, but people were on the streets. Even the OMG MARTIAL LAW videos above clearly depict people hanging out outside their homes a quarter mile from where the shooting was, in the presence of scarily dressed cops, with no repercussions. Exaggerating what happened makes it hard to take criticisms seriously. And all of these arrests are going to be investigated. Charles Pierce interviewed one of the Watertown cops involved in the shootout, and he is on desk duty for a month, filling out paperwork about everything he did on Friday.

Also, to second sonika, I'm not sure the shelter in place request made a lot of sense outside of Watertown after a while. On the other hand, I wish the police had gotten to finish their search of Watertown before our shelter in place request had been lifted, but I guess it all worked out in the end.
posted by Elementary Penguin at 2:27 AM on April 23, 2013 [3 favorites]


EP, as I mentioned in my response to Jilder, it was never my intent to state that the city was locked down. S/He was responding to my comment where I used lockdown as a symbol of one end of a spectrum, but then took it completely out of context.
posted by bendy at 2:34 AM on April 23, 2013


That wasn't meant to be directed at you, bendy. Sorry. More of a general crankiness about the national media portrayal of Friday.
posted by Elementary Penguin at 3:03 AM on April 23, 2013 [1 favorite]


"American civil religion" - Google: About 519,000 results

Oh, I know, benito, and I considered linking to something like Americanism: The Fourth Great Western Religion, but I don't like to recommend books I haven't read yet (so now I have). I just chose the words I wanted to say and figured they must have been said that way before, but apparently not.
posted by dhartung at 3:19 AM on April 23, 2013 [1 favorite]


Hospitalized Boston Marathon bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev has told investigators, in writing and through gestures, that he and his brother were motivated by religion but were not in contact with overseas terrorists or groups, officials say.
posted by nickyskye at 4:01 AM on April 23, 2013


Photos of the actual shootout between the two brothers and police.

(There's no gore or blood that I could see)
posted by empath at 4:15 AM on April 23, 2013 [9 favorites]


Is this already up thread somewhere? April 22, 2013: Tamerlan Tsarnaev now linked to the Waltham murders.

Police probe possible link between Marathon bomber and unsolved triple homicide in Waltham


Now linked != possible link
posted by murfed13 at 4:28 AM on April 23, 2013 [1 favorite]


Despicable, disgusting. How dare that person presume to speak for me or anyone else in the US with such a repulsive sentiment.
Charles Thompson, Secretary of the Continental Congress, reporting to Congress on the Seal, stated:

"The colors of the pales (the vertical stripes) are those used in the flag of the United States of America; White signifies purity and innocence, Red, hardiness & valour, and Blue, the color of the Chief (the broad band above the stripes) signifies vigilance, perseverance & justice."
Seems appropriate.

Unless you're the smash-all-flags anarchist type who angrily marches into the local diner to berate the lady behind the counter, "How can you claim this town has the world's best rhubarb peach pie? YOUR RHUBARB PEACH PIE IS JUST AS GOOD AS ANY OTHER TOWN'S, NO BETTER."
posted by Slap*Happy at 4:35 AM on April 23, 2013


the comments on the shootout photos, btw, are absolutely loony-tunes. alex jones and glenn beck have a lot to answer for.
posted by empath at 4:44 AM on April 23, 2013 [1 favorite]


Honestly, I'm not even sure that they tried to use the carjacking victim's card more than once.
Dzhokhar appears at the 7-11 around the time of the robbery, which was 10:28 pm, before the shooting of the MIT officer and before the carjacking. Therefore, he wasn't using the victim's card there. They go to the Bank of America in Watertown to get cash after the carjacking, but what other ATM do they try? Does anyone know?
posted by bobobox at 5:13 AM on April 23, 2013


Those photos are excellent, empath. They really illustrate how the shootout happened, including how Tamerlan was taken down but Dzhokhar survived, and how/why Tamerlan was run over. Thanks for posting them.
posted by Rock Steady at 5:16 AM on April 23, 2013


It is miraculous that no one in the houses near the shootout got hurt or killed.
posted by Elementary Penguin at 5:16 AM on April 23, 2013


Golden Eternity , thanks for that brilliant video. Beautiful, emotionally intelligent, wise and uplifting.
posted by nickyskye at 5:20 AM on April 23, 2013


"Photos of the actual shootout between the two brothers and police."

Those photos are interesting. I'm puzzled as to why he's describing the window from which he took those photos as "east facing" when, from looking at his house on Google Street View, it simply has to have been one of the two south facing windows (actually, had to be the westerly of those two). The SE corner of his house is on the same line as the steps in front of which the brothers were (almost) standing. I guess he means that he's looking slightly east out of that south-facing window. He takes photos looking west toward the police out of another window in that bedroom; which is possible because the bedroom juts out to the south beyond the rest of the house.

Anyway, what really struck me is the photo of the bullet hole in the wall of his roommate's room. He says that room is the second-floor SW corner room and the wall it came through is the west wall. I can't see how either of the brothers could/would have ever fired in that direction — the older brother did walk toward the police, but he'd have no reason to turn back and fire that way, unless there were officers to the east, which maybe there were eventually, but these photos don't show any signs of them. And the younger brother only went west in the SUV. (I'd read he'd backed over his brother; but he must have just driven right over him to scatter the police and try to break through the parked police cars.)

So that bullet in that guy's house seems like it was a police fired bullet. Which, I guess that sort of thing happens; but it's a damn good example of why it's a very bad thing for the police to get into intense firefights in residential neighborhoods.
posted by Ivan Fyodorovich at 5:25 AM on April 23, 2013 [1 favorite]


It's incredible, the amount of information we get, because everyone has a camera in their pocket.

Wish he had taken video.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 5:29 AM on April 23, 2013 [1 favorite]


I'm confused about their green car. Was it parked right there and they came to it in the SUV? Or did they take the SUV to the green car parked elsewhere and then divided up, drove both of them, and for some reason they stopped at this particular place?

I'd thought that they'd just driven the SUV to the car because it was parked somewhere and had more of their weapons/explosives (as well as not having an alert on it). But in these photos, the car is sitting in the middle of the street, not as if it were parked and they were trying to transfer to it (or from it).

And the whole car thing is weird, anyway. Why were the brothers on foot such a distance from that car in the first place?
posted by Ivan Fyodorovich at 5:38 AM on April 23, 2013 [1 favorite]


Reason: Civil Libertarians Appalled by Tsarnaev Manhunt, Boston Residents Thrilled
The executive director of the Massachusetts American Civil Liberties Union, Carol Rose, was more reserved in her comments about last week’s events, noting that the command to “shelter in place” was not an order but advisory. “It wouldn’t be constitutional for the government to issue that kind of an order absent other kinds of circumstances,” said Rose.
posted by the man of twists and turns at 5:46 AM on April 23, 2013 [2 favorites]


My friend has been working on this map/timeline of the manhunt events. We've been really obsessed with trying to pin down what really happened and where because the news is still reporting a very fuzzy version.

Ivan, I think it may clear up some of your questions regarding the green sedan which have really been bugging me too. And still bugging me. Apparently the green car was in my neighborhood for several hours, packed with explosives and firearms... shiver. And still, why there? Was there a Watertown connection?

More theory: the green car was college-student Dzhokhar's and they used it because older brother's Mercedes SUV was in the shop. Tamerlan later soothed his hard-on for high-end SUVs by carjacking another one. LE knew Dzhokhar's identity so put out an alert for the green Honda Civic which turned out to be at the shootout in the end.
posted by bobobox at 6:10 AM on April 23, 2013 [5 favorites]


Didn't they carjack someone, thus gaining that car and their SUV. However the victim of the carjacking left his phone in the car, so police were able to track the duo, who were each driving a vehicle: the carjack car and their SUV?

I'm reading reports that the Mercerdes SUV was carjacked, but also that one of the brothers was eager to get their Mercedes SUV out of auto repair. So I'm guessing the SUV was theirs, car was stolen.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 6:16 AM on April 23, 2013


I think Tamerlan's SUV was white, the carjacked one was black.
OK, so late for work now, must disengage.
posted by bobobox at 6:22 AM on April 23, 2013


So, this piece from Slate ("The Boston Bombers' Awful Parents", ugh to the nth degree) is pretty shitty with the conjecture but it does offer up most if not all of the statements the parents have made.

The weird seems to be a genetic thing in the Tsarnaev family.
posted by youandiandaflame at 6:24 AM on April 23, 2013 [1 favorite]


Slate has been doing some terrible work on this entire thing. I don't know if they are regularly this bad, but wow, CNN territory.
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 6:32 AM on April 23, 2013


Slate has been doing some terrible work on this entire thing.

That's Slate's "thing."
posted by (Arsenio) Hall and (Warren) Oates at 6:34 AM on April 23, 2013 [2 favorites]


Wow, that Saletan piece really makes me angry:
But when family members are repeatedly exposed to signs that a loved one is drifting into the vortex of violent extremism, they have a duty to intervene, or at least to alert someone. If they don’t, and the fanatic becomes a killer, they bear an awful responsibility. If they deny that responsibility by accusing the police and the government of anti-Islamic conspiracies, they forfeit our sympathy, our respect, and our trust. Police your family.
Someone in Saletan's family needs to intervene because he's clearly becoming a dangerous fuckwit.
posted by Ivan Fyodorovich at 6:37 AM on April 23, 2013 [18 favorites]


So, this piece from Slate ("The Boston Bombers' Awful Parents", ugh to the nth degree) is pretty shitty with the conjecture but it does offer up most if not all of the statements the parents have made.

The weird seems to be a genetic thing in the Tsarnaev family.


The denial that appears to be coming from their parents other family members is one thing that doesn't bother me at all.

I've come across so many 'My kids can do no wrong' regardless of what it is parents and family in my lifetime to think that it's not that uncommon in any culture.
posted by Jalliah at 6:39 AM on April 23, 2013 [4 favorites]




The weird seems to be a genetic thing in the Tsarnaev family.

And the farce is strong with these two.
posted by UbuRoivas at 6:42 AM on April 23, 2013


"My friend has been working on this map/timeline of the manhunt events. We've been really obsessed with trying to pin down what really happened and where because the news is still reporting a very fuzzy version."

Thanks for that. That's some surprising information. Is it reliably confirmed from the carjacking victim that Dzhokhar wasn't with them initially in the carjacked SUV? That map and timeline just ends up causing me to have far, far more questions than it answers.
posted by Ivan Fyodorovich at 6:44 AM on April 23, 2013


WIRED: False Flags, Fake Bloob, Michelle Obama - A Guide To Boston Marathon Conspiracies

So it was Abdulrahman Ali Alharbi and Michele Obama? I love my conspiracy theory but even I can tell this is probably not true.

Also a bit gutted, because Michelle Obama seemed such a nice First Lady.
posted by marienbad at 6:47 AM on April 23, 2013 [1 favorite]


Bobobox, do you know where the SUV crashed before Dzhokhar ditched it?
posted by Elementary Penguin at 6:55 AM on April 23, 2013




The victims kind of slip off into a mish mash of 'the victims', maybe because it is just too awful to focus for too long on those poor people.

There's also a distinction, in the press and in I think people's minds, between the privacy we afford people in private life and the chosen fame or notoriety of a public figure. Libel laws, for instance, are really differently applied based on whether a person was a public figure who has, in some sense, volunteered for examination and critique, or whether they are a private individual not seeking press attention. The victims certainly didn't ask for attention, and most of us are more than willing to give them the space they need to go on with their private lives privately. Tsarnaev, on the other hand, volunteered.

the people of the Boston area are the real heroes in this, not necessarily the police and that they should applaud themselves first.

Well, I think they are, don't worry about that.

everyone knows the real heroes are the Firemen who ran toward the chaos and destruction, like so many fine people did in Boston last Monday. Those are the real heroes

And they'll be the first to tell you that, like some of the firefighting heroes in my town, who yesterday posted a lot of rah-rah firefighters stuff along with anti-Islamic shit explicitly calling Islam "not a religion of peace" and linking to a right-wing Boston radio nutjob's story on Tamerlan and how his religion had "changed" him. on their Facebook page, resulting in a rash of town complaints which required the Fire Cheif to have the admins change that page from what appeared to be an official city page to a "Friends of the FD" page. Followed by much hostile shouting down from friends of the Friends, who called those of us who complained everything from un-American, to stupid, to "politically correct whiners" making a "mountain out of a molehill."

I love firefighters, have benefitted from their work, and count them among current friends, family, and people I grew up with. That doesn't make them less a part of, or make them less identify with, the law enforcement matrix of which they're a part. Sadly, a lot of members of firefighter culture have really embraced the post-9/11, jingoistic anti-Islamic attitude that fuels the growth of the security culture. That's not to say anything about their personal bravery and dedication, which is undoubtedly awe-inspiring, and I know there are many whose personal views this does not reflect. But it's not true that firefighters are the only "true heroes," or that attitudes in firefighting culture aren't part of the discourse that heightens the culture of fear. Carving one service profession out as "the heroes" is participating in that discourse. Much of what they do is heroic, just as much of what the police do, ordinary citizens do, the FBI does, is heroic. Much of what they do is support the expansion of the security state and heighten jingoistic sentiment, with the platform they have won through the general respect people have for their work. This is something problematic, which rarely gets talked of because of that sense of immense respect, but because of where I grew up (a part of NJ just saturated with firefighter culture including many of the 9/11 + aftermath firefighters) and some family inolvement on the outer circles of the 9/11 response I am acutely aware of it. There seems to be a blanket pass on firefighters' negative contributions to the national-security discourse.

Also, this idea that rights will only be stepped on or ignored "this one extra special instance" is a farce. Law enforcement NEVER puts a genie back in the bottle once a precedent or technique has been hardwired into it's culture and training techniques. PERIOD.

Well, I think you need some historical perspective here. This isn't really true. If you care to examine American history, there are many, many points just in the last century where there was an intensified policing effort which encroached upon civil liberties, and then a period of less overt presence. It also matters what populations you look at: just because people now considered majority culture are experiencing policing more now doesn't mean that immigrants who weren't yet considered white, Native Americans, religious minorities, and blacks haven't experienced this intensity of policing at periods over the nation's history. I'm not saying this isn't a problem, I'm saying that it's fair to raise the historical question of whether this is something truly new, or something simply more visible to the majority these days.

Lots of fascinating new news today, thanks everyone for the links.
posted by Miko at 7:11 AM on April 23, 2013 [4 favorites]


Fake bloobs? Chilling.
posted by (Arsenio) Hall and (Warren) Oates at 7:11 AM on April 23, 2013 [7 favorites]


Is it reliably confirmed from the carjacking victim that Dzhokhar wasn't with them initially in the carjacked SUV?

There's another link in this thread somewhere with a good timeline that specified that he was following behind them, initially, in the green sedan.
posted by Miko at 7:13 AM on April 23, 2013 [1 favorite]


the man of twists and turns: "False Flags, Fake Bloob, Michelle Obama - A Guide To Boston Marathon Conspiracies"

Aw, man, you got me all excited with that "Fake Bloob". I thought we were going into the truly weird conspiracy zone. Turns out it was just a typo for "Blood".

Unless, of course, that's part of the conspiracy
posted by Bugbread at 7:14 AM on April 23, 2013 [4 favorites]


I think that bloob(s) is a fun word which I very much want to mean something.
posted by Ivan Fyodorovich at 7:28 AM on April 23, 2013 [6 favorites]


Mother Jones: How the FBI in Boston May Have Pursued the Wrong Terrorist

I remember the usefulness of the type of FBI sting operation mentioned in that article being discussed here on Metafilter at least a couple times last year: Cleveland bridge plot & FBI terror sting operations.
posted by audi alteram partem at 7:30 AM on April 23, 2013




localroger: " I don't see anything there that changes the stitation. I'm sorry, but using a term of art that originated to describe nuclear weapons, war gas, and plague vectors to IED's with five ounces of propellant simply makes the term of art meaningless."

Definitions change with use over time.

It has been 19 years. The term didn't suddenly become meaningless just because you happened to notice after two decades that by law federal courts define it differently in civil criminal cases. There are case precedents, including McVeigh.
posted by zarq at 7:32 AM on April 23, 2013 [2 favorites]


I am amazed that so many media sorces repeated Zubeidat Tsarnaeva's claim that her son actually called her either just prior or during the shoot out to say, "I love you, Mama". I heard it on NPR after reading it in a a couple media outlets. I know this whole matter often is beyond belief, but that heart-tugger just doesn't sit right. Supposedly Tamerlan cooked this all up, making the bomds in the apartment he shared with his wife, while caring for their toddler as she worked long days as a home health-care aid?

The fascination with the perpetrators in this case is I think that for most of us everything about these people is so foreign and odd (not foreign in a other country sense, more in a just plain weird sense). We need to understand a motive before we can put this aside and I don't know that we'll ever understand.
posted by readery at 7:33 AM on April 23, 2013


Turns out it was just a typo for "Blood".

No no no that is just a cover story. This bloob thing is way bigger than what you're seeing in the news. I am digging into it and I'm finding that it goes all the way t
posted by burnmp3s at 7:33 AM on April 23, 2013 [25 favorites]


oh no guys the bloobs got burnmp3s
posted by sweetkid at 7:34 AM on April 23, 2013 [6 favorites]


@Metafiller: Disregard that last statement, it was merely a humorous "meme" or joke. #nobloobconspiracyexists
posted by burnmp3s at 7:40 AM on April 23, 2013 [7 favorites]


oh no guys the bloobs got burnmp3s

Bloobs = RIAA = CISPA vote = Lizard people?

This goes deeper than we thought!
posted by zombieflanders at 7:41 AM on April 23, 2013 [1 favorite]


"FBI: No ricin found in home of Mississippi suspect"

I hope they checked behind the switch plate.
posted by Room 641-A at 7:41 AM on April 23, 2013 [6 favorites]


This goes deeper than we thought!

It goes all the way to Deep Bloob.
posted by sweetkid at 7:43 AM on April 23, 2013


Um, no offense, but could we get off the bloob derail?
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 7:44 AM on April 23, 2013 [1 favorite]


@Metafiller: Disregard that last comment, it was merely a humorous "meme" or joke. #nobloobconspiracyexists

Nice try, bloobs. We're onto you.
posted by zombieflanders at 7:44 AM on April 23, 2013 [1 favorite]


Some people just can't handle the truth of bloobs.
posted by Ivan Fyodorovich at 7:47 AM on April 23, 2013


No, it's just annoying.
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 7:47 AM on April 23, 2013




zombieflanders: Is the Ricin Case Coming Apart?

Dude, I was just saying to my wife when the Elvis impersonator was arrested that a real easy way to frame somebody for a crime like this would be to use their Internet ramblings against them.
posted by Rock Steady at 8:12 AM on April 23, 2013


The ricin thing really doesn't have anything to do with the bombings. It's interesting, though, and probably deserves its own post.
posted by (Arsenio) Hall and (Warren) Oates at 8:20 AM on April 23, 2013 [8 favorites]


There are case precedents, including McVeigh.

I have no problem calling McVeigh's bomb a WMD. It took down a building and killed over 150 people. I think any reasonable person would agree that this qualifies for the M in WMD.

This law has been applied very few times and few of us bother to parse the text of such things closely, so the fact that this stupidness has been in place for 19 years is pretty meaningless. This is the first time it's likely to be widely noticed.

The wording of this law is simply a land grab. You can pass a law defining the value of pi as 3 or the color of the sky as red, and you can apply those definitions consistently in court if you want to, but you should not be surprised to find that reasonable people who are not in on the joke think you are off your rocker when you keep insisting the sky is red.

There is more than an order of magnitude difference between both the investment and results of McVeigh versus the Marathon bombers. And I would consider McVeigh's effort at the small end of what should be considered WMD already. Of course the law is the law and it says what it says. And I say it's an obscene misapplication of a now debased term.
posted by localroger at 8:44 AM on April 23, 2013 [4 favorites]


There is more than an order of magnitude difference between both the investment and results of McVeigh versus the Marathon bombers.

But not really. While only (only!) three people died in Boston last Monday, there were over 250 injuries, and a great many people may have only survived because of Boston's impeccable hospitals.
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 8:50 AM on April 23, 2013 [2 favorites]


Via NBC (by way of Pete Williams): Tsarnaev tells investigators in writing that he and his brother were not in touch with any overseas terror groups and that brother got instructions to make the bombs from the internet.
posted by youandiandaflame at 8:53 AM on April 23, 2013


a great many people may have only survived because of Boston's impeccable hospitals

And the fact that there were a lot of medical personnel and equipment at the bombing site already because of the marathon, which made it possible to start triaging immediately afterwards.
posted by burnmp3s at 8:59 AM on April 23, 2013 [4 favorites]


a great many people may have only survived because of Boston's impeccable hospitals.

This is really important. Boston's medical professionals really covered themselves with glory here. With all the debate about cops and firefighters, I think we can all agree that the medical folks deserve a big round of applause.
posted by ambrosia at 9:01 AM on April 23, 2013 [11 favorites]


localroger: " I have no problem calling McVeigh's bomb a WMD. It took down a building and killed over 150 people. I think any reasonable person would agree that this qualifies for the M in WMD."

The marathon bombs killed 3 and reportedly injured 264. 14 of those injured had to have one or more limbs, or part of a limb amputated. The reason so many people were killed in the Oklahoma bombing is they were in a building when it collapsed. The reason so many people survived their injuries in Boston was the bombs went off in an open crowd, and the people affected were not encased in a building. Also, the exceptional rapid response of police, EMTs and care the injured received at area hospitals played a role as well.

The fact of the matter is, the Marathon bombs indiscriminately targeted a crowd of people, and contained a certain amount of explosive power.

localroger: "There is more than an order of magnitude difference between both the investment and results of McVeigh versus the Marathon bombers. And I would consider McVeigh's effort at the small end of what should be considered WMD already. "

The law purposefully doesn't define the crime by its results. It defines WMD's by what they are designed to do. The bombs were designed and placed to kill large numbers of people. Whether that goal was achieved or not does not change their classification.
posted by zarq at 9:02 AM on April 23, 2013 [5 favorites]


For those interested (and those who have 90 minutes), I would HIGHLY suggest giving this podcast a listen to. The host, Steve, is a multi-time Boston finisher who wasn't running last Monday but has a great many friends who ran and who give their accounts. I was particularly interested by the woman who was at mile 21-ish when the bombs went off, and wasn't stopped until much later. The rumors they were hearing on the course were at first was that there had been an explosion, but that everything was okay.
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 9:04 AM on April 23, 2013 [1 favorite]




This law has been applied very few times and few of us bother to parse the text of such things closely, so the fact that this stupidness has been in place for 19 years is pretty meaningless. This is the first time it's likely to be widely noticed.

I think you mean the first time it's been noticed by you. It was the charge against McVeigh, it was the charge against Moussaoui, it was the charge against the underwear bomber and the shoe bomber; I'm guessing there are plenty more if I keep looking. Anyone following those prosecutions would have realized it. It's one standard way of dealing with terrorist attacks, criminally, in the United States.

I'm sympathetic to the idea that the law should treat detonating a nuclear device differently from detonating a conventional explosive, but since either is going to carry whatever the most serious penalty possible is, it's sort of a technical point. You've also not really articulated what you think the importance of this semantic point is, other than that apparently you're not going to take the prosecution seriously because other people use words differently than you do.
posted by Bulgaroktonos at 9:10 AM on April 23, 2013 [6 favorites]


Dzhokhar Tsarnaev has told investigators, in writing and through gestures, that he and his brother were motivated by religion but were not in contact with overseas terrorists or groups, officials say.

Prediction: a significant number of postings from left-leaning bloggers arguing the first part of the point.

There is certainly a weird subtext to this whole event which is the way that people on the left have been rather transparently trying to blame Anything But Islam for this which would make for a very interesting discussion. The important thing to talk about isn't the attack, it's { america is bad, the rush to judge brown people, how the tea partiers really COULD have done this, ... } and so on. We see it on this thread and the previous one.

Why? It's making the left look even more unhinged than the right - we are making the tea partiers look like spin-free clear thinkers.
posted by rr at 9:10 AM on April 23, 2013 [1 favorite]


Al Jazeera; Reddit apologises for Boston 'witch hunts' - "Social news website apologises for hosting speculation that had "negative consequences for innocent parties.""
posted by the man of twists and turns at 9:16 AM on April 23, 2013 [1 favorite]


There is certainly a weird subtext to this whole event which is the way that people on the left have been rather transparently trying to blame Anything But Islam for this

[citation needed]

I've seen some comments saying "hey, let's not rush to judgement", but as the circumstantial evidence of connections between the Tsarnaevs and Muslim extremism have piled up, I've seen those comments disappear. The reflexive urge to blame Islamic extremism before the facts were known needs to be given at least as much scrutiny as you're giving to those who tried to push back against it initially.
posted by tonycpsu at 9:21 AM on April 23, 2013 [5 favorites]


Of course, "motivated by religion" does not exclude "motivated by opposition to American foreign policy".

It's not like Islam says "Bomb non-muslims", it's more that some people say "[America/Russia/UK/Whoever] is fighting a war against Islam, we must strike back".
posted by knapah at 9:25 AM on April 23, 2013 [1 favorite]


Bombings and biased samples. (Linked not to start a grary New Atheists fight but rather because it puts Tsarnaev's extremism in a context and juxtaposition with the Islam he encountered in his daily life.) (Please don't start a grary New Atheists fight.)
posted by shakespeherian at 9:25 AM on April 23, 2013 [1 favorite]


I am not sure I understand religious fervor. Were there not Muslims running or cheering in Boston?
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 9:27 AM on April 23, 2013 [3 favorites]


It was the charge against McVeigh, it was the charge against Moussaoui,

Truck bombs intended to take down skyscrapers. Check.

it was the charge against the underwear bomber and the shoe bomber

Intended to crash a jumbo jet, check.

The law says a pipe bomb with 5 oz of gunpowder in it is the same. Don't think I'm alone in my surprise.
posted by localroger at 9:28 AM on April 23, 2013


Prediction: a significant number of postings from left-leaning bloggers arguing the first part of the point.

Actually, no, unless you're using the usual conservative tactic where "one blogger" or "random commenter" is conflated with the entirety of the left side of the blogosphere.

There is certainly a weird subtext to this whole event which is the way that people on the left have been rather transparently trying to blame Anything But Islam for this which would make for a very interesting discussion.

Except for the part where it didn't happen. But hey, if we're going to talk about that, let's talk about the subtext on the right the right is that people who are literally Caucasian are not white Because MUSLIM.

We see it on this thread and the previous one.

Who is "we"? The last time this was suggested by a MeFite, it turned out that they had one blogger (David Sirota) and a single MeFite about whose content they had gone out of their way to misrepresent.
posted by zombieflanders at 9:33 AM on April 23, 2013 [7 favorites]


If there's ever been a comment that included "people on the left" or "people on the right" that led to a useful or interesting discussion, I've yet to see it.
posted by diogenes at 9:38 AM on April 23, 2013 [9 favorites]


people on the left have been rather transparently trying to blame Anything But Islam for this

Whatever you're seeing, I'm not seeing. What I saw was this:

1. A caution about rushing to judgment and assuming there was a religious motive before knowing it was the case.
2. A concern with (correctly) noting that "Islam" as a word does not equal extremist, violent, anti-American Islamic groups. Every world religion has a crazy fringe. Because of historical intersections with politics, oil, the Cold War, and more, there is a faction of people who are both Islamic and anti-American. And a fraction of them are violent. But that doesn't equate to the idea that all Islamic people are anti-American or pro-violence. And that remains true, no matter what the religion of the guy lying in the hospital says.

I also really wonder what, exactly, the religious connection or the religious practice was. Both brothers seem to have done plenty of things that aren't consistent with devout practice. Was it more of an ideogical identification with Islam as something that helped to justify opposition to the US, or a real connection to extremist factions in the religion?
posted by Miko at 9:40 AM on April 23, 2013 [4 favorites]


we are making the tea partiers look like spin-free clear thinkers.

In order to do that, wouldn't we need to immediately start throwing up eye-gougingly ugly websites about the "Tea Party conspiracy to discredit Islam and liberalism," and to update all our FB feeds with all-capped remonstrations to "the sheeple" to wake up before ALEC and the NRA succeed in their secret plans to have all American Muslims and liberals locked up in internment camps, along with links to photos of aerial views of "mysterious" trailers in some backwoods lot whose only conceivable purpose (as subtly suggested in all-caps in the caption) must be to house all the detainees?

I'd think calling for people to be circumspect in their judgments (even now) before all the facts are known and understood in context is pretty much what defines good, clear, spin-free thinking. But then, I've been wrong in the past.
posted by saulgoodman at 9:41 AM on April 23, 2013 [3 favorites]


Boston bombing suspect's condition upgraded from serious to fair, hospital says

Special Report: The radicalization of Tamerlan Tsarnaev

Your guide to the Tsarnaev family
posted by (Arsenio) Hall and (Warren) Oates at 9:41 AM on April 23, 2013 [3 favorites]


A concern with (correctly) noting that "Islam" as a word does not equal extremist, violent, anti-American Islamic groups.

Cases in point: The instances where the US government has repeatedly tried to "seed" fake Islamic extremists in mosques that reported it to the authorities. Or how about the fact that Canadian Muslims were the ones who tipped off the RCMP in the new bombing plot?
posted by zombieflanders at 9:48 AM on April 23, 2013 [10 favorites]


That Special Report link is enlightening, Arsenio.

Has anybody else wondered about the gap between the testimony of Jahar's friends about him and his actions? I'm wary of being swayed by the "nice guy younger brother drawn into a plot of another's making" narrative. There's not really enough to play armchair psychologist, but I do wonder if accounts like that below could be read as psychopathic charm.Or at least a pretty cold-blooded willingness to deceive.
Friends describe him as a mild-mannered pot-smoker, and seem genuinely shocked that he could have been involved in violence.

Dzhokar made friends easily in high school and at the University of Massachusetts at Dartmouth, where fellow students knew him as relaxed, funny, and always up for a game of soccer.

The Twitter feed Dzhokhar's friends have identified as his chronicles a typical, restless teenage life. He's always hungry. He dreams of cheeseburgers. He's not fond of MTV or celery or homework. He jokes with friends about getting high, finding girls, watching the fantasy saga "Game of Thrones" on TV.

In a few tweets, he talks about his roots. Last March, for instance, he used the hashtag #chechnyanpower and then wrote: "a decade in America already, I want out".

A few posts from recent months offer hints of anger. In February, he posted: "Do I look like that much of a softy ... little do these dogs know they're barking at a lion." And in March: "Never underestimate the rebel with a cause."

But mostly, his tweets paint a picture of a laid back college student, with few hints of alienation or anger.

The day after the bombing, he, now notoriously, tweeted: "I'm a stress-free kind of guy." So at ease was he after the attacks that he went to the gym the following night, where he struck up a conversation about it with fellow student Zach Bettencourt.

"This is easy to do," Dzhokhar Tsarnaev said of the bombing, according to Bettencourt who spoke to Reuters. "These tragedies happen all the time in Afghanistan and Iraq."

Several of his friends have launched Facebook and Twitter campaigns proclaiming his innocence and arguing that he was set up. Others have said they believe so strongly in his good character that they would testify for him at trial.
posted by Miko at 9:55 AM on April 23, 2013 [2 favorites]


Or how about the fact that Canadian Muslims were the ones who tipped off the RCMP in the new bombing plot?

Canadians, eh? What are they hiding?

Other than the fact that the secret ingredient in Tim Horton's donuts is "crack cocaine".
posted by tonycpsu at 9:57 AM on April 23, 2013


Miko, I would argue that the disturbing tweets mentioned there are reasons that it wouldn't be surprising that he would commit such a crime.
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 9:58 AM on April 23, 2013


Has anybody else wondered about the gap between the testimony of Jahar's friends about him and his actions?

Shocked Dzhokar Tsarnaev Always Thought Classmates Were Really Great Judges Of Character
posted by seemoreglass at 10:00 AM on April 23, 2013 [9 favorites]


Well, I can see that those hint at an underlying threatening nature. But in the context of an overall "I"m a friendly guy" persona, they are small and late hints that came when he knew things were about to be happening. I've heard a few of his friends interviewed, and they're incredulous. He had them pretty well fooled about who he was.
posted by Miko at 10:03 AM on April 23, 2013


I would argue that the disturbing tweets mentioned there are reasons that it wouldn't be surprising that he would commit such a crime.

If you have anything at all to do with kids of that age, those tweets are only disturbing AFTER something like this happens.

They're frightening to read but honestly, this is really just how the kids* are speaking these days. With the exception of the stress free tweet the day after the bombing, they're all pretty much the norm for teenagers.

*The kids I'm around, anyhow, and they're pure Midwestern kids who have no idea what diversity is or where Chechnya is on a map. I know that's a generalization about the youth in my area but it's kind of true. They talk just like this kid did. Also, get off my lawn.
posted by youandiandaflame at 10:03 AM on April 23, 2013 [4 favorites]


I am not sure I understand religious fervor. Were there not Muslims running or cheering in Boston?

Not that these guys were likely Al Queda except by correspondence course, but it's worth remembering that the majority of people Al Queda kills are other Muslims.
posted by Artw at 10:04 AM on April 23, 2013 [7 favorites]


if a place like this combed through every thing i wrote from 16-19, they would be sure that i was angry, and pent up, and maybe about to go off the rails and either kill myself or a lot of other people. the writings i read from my peers was about the same. i think overanalyzing his twitter is something that happens due to an absence of his voice in all this, but i don't know that it's terribly useful.
posted by nadawi at 10:04 AM on April 23, 2013 [4 favorites]


oh, and i was in school pre-columbine - so i don't think it's just "these days."
posted by nadawi at 10:05 AM on April 23, 2013


I don't believe in overanalyzing it. I don't think those Tweets would have given you any warning or insight. They're the exception; his cool, calm, collected, "Stress-free type of guy" persona in general is how he operated, and it's pretty fucking chilling to think you can act like that for years while plotting to kill people in as big and ugly a way as you can pull off.
posted by Miko at 10:07 AM on April 23, 2013 [3 favorites]


if a place like this combed through every thing i wrote from 16-19, they would be sure that i was angry, and pent up, and maybe about to go off the rails and either kill myself or a lot of other people. the writings i read from my peers was about the same. i think overanalyzing his twitter is something that happens due to an absence of his voice in all this, but i don't know that it's terribly useful

I once worked on a murder trial where the Defendant was 19 and had murdered his father. Everyone who was interviewed the murder was convinced that they could see all the warning signs starting when he was a freshman in high school: he was sullen, he didn't like family dinners, he was angry, he spent a lot of time in his room playing Warcraft.

In short, he was exactly like me and everyone I knw when I was 14. Only after he stabbed his father to death did anyone think it was relevant.
posted by Bulgaroktonos at 10:08 AM on April 23, 2013 [19 favorites]


if a place like this combed through every thing i wrote from 16-19, they would be sure that i was angry, and pent up, and maybe about to go off the rails and either kill myself or a lot of other people. the writings i read from my peers was about the same. i think overanalyzing his twitter is something that happens due to an absence of his voice in all this, but i don't know that it's terribly useful.

Agreed. I think it's disturbing that people are calling his mostly innocuous tweets disturbing. When I was fifteen or so, I got a terrible score on my PSATs and wrote three pages of diary entries ridiculing myself and probably saying terrible things about other people too, so great was my despair and certainty I would be stuck in a low end job forever because of my PSAT scores. Lack of perspective hello!

I mean, this nineteen year old actually did turn out to do a terrible thing. But that doesn't mean his tweets showed signs of anything. Even wanting to leave America, that's not a crime. Hating America, that's not a crime either.
posted by sweetkid at 10:08 AM on April 23, 2013 [2 favorites]


The law says a pipe bomb with 5 oz of gunpowder in it is the same.

But let's pretend that doesn't matter... What would you call these bombs that injured >250 people? Nuisance devices? Noisemakers? Implements of injury causation?

Are you only objecting because the phrase WMD has only been bandied about in the context of iraq, which actually carries a different definition, covered earlier?

I do get the frustration with the definition. After all, a "shuriken" is explicitly defined as being equivalent to a 50cal handgun in terms of KY law. However, I don't object to the term lethal weapon, just the fact that it's technically equivalent.
posted by MysticMCJ at 10:08 AM on April 23, 2013 [1 favorite]


Clearly, the problem with domestic terror incidents is that we're not using the correct vocabulary in talking about them.
posted by tonycpsu at 10:12 AM on April 23, 2013 [7 favorites]


Both brothers seem to have done plenty of things that aren't consistent with devout practice.

They also stopped doing some of those things. Tamerlan gave up smoking and drinking (and, possibly, boxing) two years ago, about the same time he and mother became more religious. And I've seen an interview with a friend who said Dzhokar no longer smoked weed as of sometime before this school year started.
posted by 0 at 10:12 AM on April 23, 2013


Not smoking and drinking, even becoming more devout in your religion, does not make anyone more likely to become a terrorist.

Note that Tamerlan was asked to leave his mosque over outbursts about the fact that the mosque was using MLK in a lesson about peace, because MLK wasn't a Muslim.
posted by sweetkid at 10:15 AM on April 23, 2013 [8 favorites]


SIEGEL: Today's story recounts Tamerlan Tsarnaev's vocal opposition to devout Muslims celebrating American holidays: Thanksgiving, the Fourth of July. He did it in the mosque, I gather. He did it elsewhere. It was known to people.

TROIANOVSKI: That was one of the interesting things I found in Cambridge. He frequented a halal meat shop. The shopkeeper there told me a story from last Thanksgiving time. On his meat counter, he had posted a sign advertising Thanksgiving turkeys, and Tamerlan, he said, came in, spotted the sign and grew angry. He referred to the Thanksgiving turkeys as kaffir, an Arabic reference to non-Muslims. And it was around that same time, actually, that Tamerlan had his first outburst in that mosque at Friday prayers.

The speaker at the Friday sermon was saying that we, this congregation, just as we celebrate Muhammad's birthday, we can celebrate American holidays like July Fourth and Thanksgiving. Tamerlan stood up and protested and said, you know, he disagreed with celebrating Muhammad's birthday as well as celebrating these American holidays. [NPR]
posted by shakespeherian at 10:22 AM on April 23, 2013 [1 favorite]


I've seen an interview with a friend who said Dzhokar no longer smoked weed as of sometime before this school year started.

Ah. There's a better spin than "Friend: Suspect 'a normal pot head'"

Don't want to become public enemy #1? Smoke weed every day.
posted by mrgrimm at 10:22 AM on April 23, 2013 [4 favorites]


Not smoking and drinking, even becoming more devout in your religion, does not make anyone more likely to become a terrorist.

Agreed, I didn't say it made them more likely to become a terrorist. Even remotely.

There is some question about how religious they were, and the point was made that they did things inconsistent with religious practice. I merely note that they seemed to have stopped doing at least some of those.
posted by 0 at 10:23 AM on April 23, 2013 [1 favorite]


I didn't really mean to be picking on your comment 0, just annoyed by the general trend of picking apart their religious practice or lack thereof to see if that makes them terrorists. And also, the MLK/mosque thing makes me think even if they were trying to be more devout, they were doing devout wrong according to their own religious leaders. And hurting people is taking devout wrong to a whole other and terrible level.
posted by sweetkid at 10:29 AM on April 23, 2013 [2 favorites]


And I've seen an interview with a friend who said Dzhokar no longer smoked weed as of sometime before this school year started.

Well, there's your explanation, then. (Ugh, it's so hard to resist the one-liners sometimes).

But no, seriously, those suspect tweets described above do seem consistent with the idea that Dzhokar had recently begun looking for his identity in Chechnyan nationalism and religious belief.

There's a lot of that going around these days--people with an insecure sense of their own core identity getting caught up in various flavors of extremism, seeking to identify with the most radical forms of whatever they consider themselves to be (political, religious, ethnic or otherwise). I've long suspected that increasing levels of general identity insecurity are inevitable given how much more rapidly we take in information about ourselves and the world around us these days, since there's almost certainly a feedback mechanism there that allows us to modify our self-identity based on information we take in about ourselves and our place in the world over time.

But at the individual level, it seems pretty plausible Dzhokar was at least partly seeking a source of personal pride in his Chechnyan heritage and the mythology around his cultural background ("...little do these dogs know they're barking at a lion"; the ChechnyanPower hashtag, etc.).

But I'm speaking here only as a guy trying to make sense of an ugly situation that ultimately probably won't ever make sense, and I get that, so please don't take my educated amateur psychologist shtick for anything more than that. And yeah, generally, I think it's not a good idea to put too much stock in the significance of people's tweets and FB updates. I don't think there's a whole lot of predictive power there. I have a few old friends from high school who post some of the craziest conspiracy theory and anti-government nonsense I've ever seen who I don't think would ever actually act on any of their crazy beliefs.
posted by saulgoodman at 10:35 AM on April 23, 2013 [1 favorite]


I'm not picking apart their religion to see if it "makes them terrorists." To try to be even more clear, I was wondering about the validity of the link between "a person is Muslim, therefore any terrorist act they do is connected to their religion-related anti-Americanism." Or even shorter, whether "A Muslim did something violent, therefore they did the violent thing because they are Muslim."

It's possible somebody could be a pretty lightly observant member of a religion and just be pissed off at things without being especially religiously motivated.I was wondering whether there are indiciations as to how deep the sense of loyalty to Islam ran in them, as sometimes people identify with a faction with which they actually have little, personally, to do, but more just admire from afar.

It doesn't sound like that's the case at least for Tamerlan, based on the details of his past becoming available now.
posted by Miko at 10:38 AM on April 23, 2013


How Studying Extremist Psychology Can Help Prevent Another Bombing
Having built a career studying far-right extremism, Griffin shifted to studying domestic radicalization — including advising the British Home Office — after the “7/7″ bombings in London by a group of domestic terrorists in July 2005. He believes violent extremism of any variety should be understood less as a political phenomenon than as a psychological state — particularly, as a form of destructive and self-destructive behavior that’s rooted in feeling disconnected from the modern world.
posted by the man of twists and turns at 10:39 AM on April 23, 2013 [10 favorites]


Sweetkid, I think people are mainly responding to the "Dzhokhar says they were motivated by religion" thing by noting that a) Dude, if you think your religion is instructing you to kill people, ur doin it wrong and b) Dude, you may say you're a devout Muslim, but even before you bombed people, you acted about as devout as some lukewarm Presbyterian who goes to church on Xmas to keep from pissing off his mother.
posted by FelliniBlank at 10:39 AM on April 23, 2013 [5 favorites]


Not smoking and drinking, even becoming more devout in your religion, does not make anyone more likely to become a terrorist.

Really? What are you basing that conclusion on? I'm not saying there is a correlation, but how are you so sure there isn't?

Somewhat related: How the terrorists stopped terrorism
posted by mrgrimm at 10:43 AM on April 23, 2013 [3 favorites]


Sweetkid, I think people are mainly responding to the "Dzhokhar says they were motivated by religion" thing by noting that a) Dude, if you think your religion is instructing you to kill people, ur doin it wrong and b) Dude, you may say you're a devout Muslim, but even before you bombed people, you acted about as devout as some lukewarm Presbyterian who goes to church on Xmas to keep from pissing off his mother.
posted by FelliniBlank at 10:39 AM on April 23 [+] [!]


No true Muslim...
posted by rr at 10:49 AM on April 23, 2013


That's a fabulous article the man of twists and turns posted. There's that core of "impotent seething anger, resentment, alienation, frustration, entitlement channeled into some sense of cause or mission" that forms the core of so many of these events, premeditated mass shootings, violent white supremacist movements, etc.
posted by FelliniBlank at 10:49 AM on April 23, 2013 [1 favorite]


Interestingly, the AP's twitter feed has apparently been hacked and someone has been using it to post tweets about explosions at the White House that never happened. As if it weren't hard enough already to tell what the hell's going on these days.
posted by saulgoodman at 10:52 AM on April 23, 2013 [1 favorite]


There's a lot of that going around these days--people with an insecure sense of their own core identity getting caught up in various flavors of extremism, seeking to identify with the most radical forms of whatever they consider themselves to be (political, religious, ethnic or otherwise).

I've never verified it myself. But I remember hearing (way back) that a good friend who was of Irish heritage (not born there) and doing pretty well in business was sending substantial donations to the provisional wing of the IRA (ie: the ones that were killing people). I remember thinking, this is the guy's guilt at work here. He's raking in the dough doing stuff his younger self would have hated, so now he's giving some of it away to a cause that reflects that sort of hatred.
posted by philip-random at 10:52 AM on April 23, 2013 [2 favorites]


rr: “No true Muslim...”

Yep. The whole "no true Scotsman" thing is not a type of fallacy, no matter how many times people may claim that it is. If you know the definition of a thing, it is possible to make arguments based on the definition of that thing; and if you can define "Scotsman" or "Muslim," you can make arguments about what being a Scot or a Muslim means.
posted by koeselitz at 10:54 AM on April 23, 2013 [5 favorites]


Sweetkid, I think people are mainly responding to the "Dzhokhar says they were motivated by religion" thing by noting that a) Dude, if you think your religion is instructing you to kill people, ur doin it wrong and b) Dude, you may say you're a devout Muslim, but even before you bombed people, you acted about as devout as some lukewarm Presbyterian who goes to church on Xmas to keep from pissing off his mother.

Yeah, that makes sense.
posted by sweetkid at 10:54 AM on April 23, 2013 [1 favorite]


Yeah, it seems that those fake tweets cause a "mini flash crash" in the markets. You can see an odd blip on all the charts.
posted by diogenes at 10:55 AM on April 23, 2013


Dude, if you think your religion is instructing you to kill people, ur doin it wrong

Again, really?!

"Not only do the Israelites in the Bible commit repeated acts of genocide and ethnic cleansing, but they do so under direct divine command."

"... in the cities of the nations the Lord your God is giving you as an inheritance, do not leave alive anything that breathes; Completely destroy[a] them—the Hittites, Amorites, Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites—as the Lord your God has commanded you; Otherwise, they will teach you to follow all the detestable things they do in worshiping their gods, and you will sin against the Lord your God."

Deuteronomy 20: 16-18

"... slay them wherever ye find them, and drive them out of the places whence they drove you out, for persecution is worse than slaughter"

Qur'an, Surah 2:191
posted by mrgrimm at 10:55 AM on April 23, 2013 [2 favorites]


Right, but you can find advocation of violence in many sacred books. That doesn't meant that the current heads of those organized religions are calling for murder. I don't see what's so "really??" about it.
posted by sweetkid at 10:57 AM on April 23, 2013 [2 favorites]


Somewhat related: How the terrorists stopped terrorism

Didn't work for Tamerlan, obviously.
posted by Miko at 11:01 AM on April 23, 2013


Well then lock those Israelites right up.
posted by shakespeherian at 11:02 AM on April 23, 2013 [3 favorites]


the only sane way I've ever found to read these holy books, is to take them as tribal histories (warts and all). What gets interesting with Christianity, of course, is that eventually a guy shows up who lays claim to GOD status and effectively tells everybody they're doing it wrong ... and gets killed for his trouble. After which a canny guy by name of Paul capitalizes on all the fallout and invents a whole new religion/bureaucracy ...

Not knowing much about the Koran, I wonder if there's a similar interpretation.
posted by philip-random at 11:03 AM on April 23, 2013 [2 favorites]


Good grief, mrgrimm. Did you even read the passages you're linking to without context? I guess not.

"And fight in the way of Allah with those who fight with you, and do not exceed the limits, surely Allah does not love those who exceed the limits."

That's Surah 2:190. Like, literally the verse just before the one you quoted. Geez.
posted by koeselitz at 11:04 AM on April 23, 2013 [8 favorites]


Well then lock those Israelites right up.

Let's put Inspector Javert on the case. He doesn't take any shit.
posted by FelliniBlank at 11:04 AM on April 23, 2013 [2 favorites]


Yep. The whole "no true Scotsman" thing is not a type of fallacy, no matter how many times people may claim that it is. If you know the definition of a thing, it is possible to make arguments based on the definition of that thing; and if you can define "Scotsman" or "Muslim," you can make arguments about what being a Scot or a Muslim means.

What am I missing? Isn't this an argument that "no true Scotsman" *is* a logical fallacy?
posted by Golden Eternity at 11:06 AM on April 23, 2013


Golden Eternity: “What am I missing? Isn't this an argument that 'no true Scotsman' *is* a logical fallacy?”

No. The point is that it's not a fallacy to say "no true Scotsman would do X" if you can say definitively what a Scotsman is.
posted by koeselitz at 11:11 AM on April 23, 2013 [1 favorite]


Interestingly, the AP's twitter feed has apparently been hacked and someone has been using it to post tweets about explosions at the White House that never happened.
Check out the reaction of the major stock market indices to this, and then to the quick discovery that it was a hoax.
posted by Flunkie at 11:13 AM on April 23, 2013


The problem is that the argument is consistently pulled out without a consistent definition of "Scotsman." That's when it's a fallacy.
posted by Holy Zarquon's Singing Fish at 11:14 AM on April 23, 2013 [2 favorites]


No. The point is that it's not a fallacy to say "no true Scotsman would do X" if you can say definitively what a Scotsman is.

Mighty white of you to define what a muslim is for them, then.
posted by rr at 11:15 AM on April 23, 2013 [1 favorite]


Interestingly, the AP's twitter feed has apparently been hacked and someone has been using it to post tweets about explosions at the White House that never happened.

Man, that's a pretty tasteless last-ditch attempt at viral marketing, producers of Olympus Has Fallen.
posted by Atom Eyes at 11:16 AM on April 23, 2013 [2 favorites]


rr: “Mighty white of you to define what a muslim is for them, then.”

I didn't define anything. I just said that it wasn't fallacious.
posted by koeselitz at 11:17 AM on April 23, 2013


surely Allah does not love those who exceed the limits.

Wow. Allah hates 2 Unlimited.
posted by GuyZero at 11:17 AM on April 23, 2013 [4 favorites]


Yeah, it seems that those fake tweets cause a "mini flash crash" in the markets. You can see an odd blip on all the charts.

I bet a lot of small investors just got screwed by automatic stop-loss orders, then.
posted by saulgoodman at 11:20 AM on April 23, 2013


Wow. Allah hates 2 Unlimited.

He's totally cool with StrongBad, though.
posted by tonycpsu at 11:21 AM on April 23, 2013 [2 favorites]


Yep. The whole "no true Scotsman" thing is not a type of fallacy, no matter how many times people may claim that it is. If you know the definition of a thing, it is possible to make arguments based on the definition of that thing; and if you can define "Scotsman" or "Muslim," you can make arguments about what being a Scot or a Muslim means.

The fallacy doesn't apply to any argument about definition, but about cases where the definition is arbitrarily changed to exclude a specific case. "Humans are members of the animal kingdom, except for my niece, who is a divine incarnation of the concept of cuteness."

This is different from having an argument about whether a "Scot" should be defined in terms of ancestry, ethnicity, residency, or nominal citizenship status as part of the U.K.. Personally, I suspect that defining religions and nationalities that have hundreds or thousands of years of history in terms of their agreement with you WRT contemporary politics (which is usually what triggers a True Scotsman complaint) is a bad definition to start with.
posted by CBrachyrhynchos at 11:32 AM on April 23, 2013 [1 favorite]


"The 19-year-old suspect in the Boston Marathon bombings has told interrogators that the American wars in Iraq and Afghanistan motivated him and his brother to carry out the attack, according to U.S. officials familiar with the interviews."
posted by (Arsenio) Hall and (Warren) Oates at 11:39 AM on April 23, 2013 [1 favorite]


surely Allah does not love those who exceed the limits.

Clearly god hates Don Henley and Paul Engemann!
posted by The 10th Regiment of Foot at 11:44 AM on April 23, 2013 [1 favorite]


No Public Panic Over Terrorism
Americans generally think the country is safer from terrorism threats than it used to be, and are equally divided as to whether the government could do more on this front. Given the wide variety of possible prescriptions for “greater safety,” this doesn’t indicate much momentum for any particular new effort here or abroad. And there are no very large partisan splits on this subject, which may be the best news of all: perhaps Islamophobia and affection for torture won’t become a larger feature of Republican rhetoric than they already occupy.
posted by zombieflanders at 11:44 AM on April 23, 2013 [3 favorites]


That's a good little piece, zombieflanders.

As far as I can see the reaction, it feels to me like America has grown up a little, into a "sadder but wiser" country that knows we can't opt out of global conflict and that it is going to show up here occasionally.

I am no good at international relations, at understanding how people develop political theories that let them set policy for countries and the world. I don't have a good frame to apply to that discussion. But the civilian populace, at least, has changed a lot since 9/11. Back then, we were gobsmacked. What? How? Huh? Today, we are dismayed and stunned, but not utterly shocked, as if this possibility could never have crossed our minds (or does not every time we're in a big crowd or visiting a "high-value target" location). We tended to withhold judgment (not everybody, but a fair amount of people) about who would turn out to be responsible. We had some excellent systems in place, as a link above demonstrated, that meant that hospitals and first responders had drilled for this a lot. It wasn't chaos, and the aftermath isn't incomprehensible. And, finally, I think there's a broad recognition that our foreign policy has been making things worse, not better (though I think the seeds of something like this were planted so long ago, under Stalin really, that it's going to be many decades before seeds still being planted today come to fruit0.
posted by Miko at 11:54 AM on April 23, 2013 [2 favorites]


Thinking more on it, "no true scotsman" its conjoined twin "guilt by association" are usually examples of overgeneralizations. The reasonable response to both is to point out that the group in question is a diverse set, and its relationship to the issue in question is potentially complex.
posted by CBrachyrhynchos at 12:09 PM on April 23, 2013 [1 favorite]


The reasonable response

See, there's your problem right there. Absolutist fundamentalism doesn't go for the reasoned response.
posted by The 10th Regiment of Foot at 12:17 PM on April 23, 2013


Sorry, who's the absolutist fundamentalist in this discussion?
posted by Miko at 12:27 PM on April 23, 2013


Boston.com News Marathon bombing suspect admitted to FBI that he and brother detonated bombs, killed police officer
posted by nickyskye at 12:28 PM on April 23, 2013 [3 favorites]


nickyskye, WOW.
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 12:29 PM on April 23, 2013


See, there's your problem right there. Absolutist fundamentalism doesn't go for the reasoned response.

I don't see many absolutist fundamentalists in this discussion about whether the Tsarnaev brothers should be either treated as typical of Islam or not muslim at all.
posted by CBrachyrhynchos at 12:29 PM on April 23, 2013


Boston.com News Marathon bombing suspect admitted to FBI that he and brother detonated bombs, killed police officer

Good. Now the Feds offer him life without parole in exchange for a guilty plea and we can get this over with.
posted by tonycpsu at 12:31 PM on April 23, 2013 [7 favorites]


Before or after being Mirandized?

If before, this thing is about to go up to 24 or 25 out of 10 on the shitstorm-o-meter.
posted by Holy Zarquon's Singing Fish at 12:42 PM on April 23, 2013 [1 favorite]


Sorry, who's the absolutist fundamentalist in this discussion?

Um, those declaring "no true scot" would be absolutist fundamentalists, no?
posted by The 10th Regiment of Foot at 12:43 PM on April 23, 2013 [2 favorites]


Holy Zarquon's Singing Fish, the Boston.com story says before.
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 12:43 PM on April 23, 2013


Yeah, the Boston.com article says he hasn't been Mirandized, but he certainly has been, according to the official complaint filed against him.
posted by mudpuppie at 12:44 PM on April 23, 2013 [1 favorite]


What would you call these bombs that injured >250 people?

See, this is another example of twisting the language to turn these fucked up kids into Blofeld with a laser cannon and volcano lair. If by injured you meant 250 people were admitted to the hospital with life-threatening or disfiguring injuries, then yeah I'd agree WMD's. But that's not what happened. You had 250 people who took shrapnel, most of which was tiny and not very fast moving and warranted disinfectant and a band-aid. By that standard the X games are a terrorist training camp.

What I would call these crude and not very effective homemade bombs is something along the lines of "crude and not very effective homemade bombs." When you look at the number of people who actually went to the hospital with some doubt as to whether they would go home whole they could have gotten off a lot more mayhem a lot more reliably with weapons everyone, including that stupid law, agree are not WMD's. Like the ones used at Newtown.
posted by localroger at 12:45 PM on April 23, 2013 [2 favorites]


I think they're saying that his "admission" came before being Mirandized, but he's been Mirandized since.
posted by (Arsenio) Hall and (Warren) Oates at 12:46 PM on April 23, 2013


He was Mirandized at the hearing. This statement was given before the hearing, the article says. Thus, no Miranda warning. So assuming there's a trial, his lawyer(s) will argue it's inadmissible, while the government will claim the public safety exception.
posted by Holy Zarquon's Singing Fish at 12:46 PM on April 23, 2013


mudpuppie, I believe the admission was on Sunday.
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 12:47 PM on April 23, 2013


I'm relatively sure Dzhokhar will continue confessing post-Miranda since the cops have simply replaced Tamerlan as the alpha dog he apparently enjoys accommodating.
posted by FelliniBlank at 12:49 PM on April 23, 2013 [3 favorites]


Boston.com News: Tsarnaev made his admissions to FBI agents who interviewed him at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, where he is being treated for multiple gunshot wounds. He had not yet been given a Miranda warning.
posted by nickyskye at 12:49 PM on April 23, 2013


So assuming there's a trial, his lawyer(s) will argue it's inadmissible, while the government will claim the public safety exception.

As I understand it, the point of the "public safety exception" isn't to find a loophole to introduce a confession into evidence; it's to learn possibly life saving information as soon as possible.

If there is in fact video of this guy placing the bomb, I don't think the prosecution will particularly care whether they have a confession.
posted by BobbyVan at 12:50 PM on April 23, 2013 [3 favorites]


Sounds like they don't care about the admission being admissible or not. They have the surveillance footage, the eyewitness, physical evidence (shirt and hat and explosive material in dorm room), not to mention his gun and other material evidence from the shoot out. Surely they have a case even without his statements.
posted by (Arsenio) Hall and (Warren) Oates at 12:50 PM on April 23, 2013


As I understand it, the point of the "public safety exception" isn't to find a loophole to introduce a confession into evidence; it's to learn possibly life saving information as soon as possible.


No. They wouldn't need the exception if that's all they were concerned about.
posted by ChurchHatesTucker at 12:52 PM on April 23, 2013




I stand corrected:
the Supreme Court has recognized only one exception to the Miranda rule—the "public safety" exception—which permits law enforcement to engage in a limited and focused unwarned interrogation and allows the government to introduce the statement as direct evidence.
posted by BobbyVan at 12:53 PM on April 23, 2013


I'm relatively sure Dzhokhar will continue confessing post-Miranda since the cops have simply replaced Tamerlan as the alpha dog he apparently enjoys accommodating.

That's well observed and depressing.
posted by sweetkid at 12:54 PM on April 23, 2013 [4 favorites]


“There’s a difference between appreciation and adoration, this has moved into adoration. We have learned that there is a vast militarized law enforcement establishment at the state, federal, and local levels. I actually feel like I am in an occupied country and I don’t know how many other people share my view on that. We have seen the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks and it is very scary,”

- Boston-based civil liberties attorney Harvey Silverglate told Reason.com*


^Via 'The Man of Twists and Turns'
*Bold is mine. For anyone who doesn't know (I'm sure most do), Reason is a Libertarian magazine. I don't usually go for their semi-Randian plutocratic-loving economics reporting, but they're right on with this article, I think.
posted by Skygazer at 12:55 PM on April 23, 2013 [1 favorite]


That's well observed and depressing.
posted by sweetkid


Sorta-eponysterical
posted by (Arsenio) Hall and (Warren) Oates at 12:55 PM on April 23, 2013


The article rm317 linked says authorities are unconcerned because the admissions were made to a not-police witness in a not-custodial setting:
But in an interview with the Globe, a senior police official said authorities are not worried about the initial admission to authorities being thrown out, because they have a strong witness: the man who was abducted by the Tsarnaev brothers last Thursday night.

Police sources told the Globe that the carjack victim has told police that Tamerlan Tsarnaev and his brother pointed guns at him and, in an apparent effort to intimidate the victim and dissaude him from trying anything foolish, Tamerlan Tsarnaev told him, “We just killed a cop. We blew up the marathon. And now we’re going to New York. Don’t [expletive] with us.”
posted by maggieb at 12:56 PM on April 23, 2013 [1 favorite]




Semi-eponysterical

what? why?
posted by sweetkid at 12:56 PM on April 23, 2013


Seems that Tamerlan's best friend was murdered in 2011. Could be relevant from two possible directions--first if Tamerlan was involved in the murder (tabloids are full of breathless speculation along these lines, I won't bother to link), and second if the murder of a good friend had a psychological impact on Tamerlan.
posted by flug at 12:57 PM on April 23, 2013


he's just a sweetkid, wants to please his elders...

like i said, sorta

[actually booing myself out loud right now]
posted by (Arsenio) Hall and (Warren) Oates at 12:58 PM on April 23, 2013 [2 favorites]


flug, Rachel Maddow had a whole segment last night, implicating that Tamerlan might well have been involved.
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 12:58 PM on April 23, 2013


See, this is another example of twisting the language to turn these fucked up kids into Blofeld with a laser cannon and volcano lair. If by injured you meant 250 people were admitted to the hospital with life-threatening or disfiguring injuries, then yeah I'd agree WMD's. But that's not what happened. You had 250 people who took shrapnel, most of which was tiny and not very fast moving and warranted disinfectant and a band-aid. By that standard the X games are a terrorist training camp.

As much as you think people want to make this into something bigger than it is, you seem pretty invested in making this as small a deal as possible; kind of insultingly so, considering that people died and were seriously injured. 3 people died, 14 people lost limbs, plenty of people were injured by bombs that were expressly designed to injure large numbers of people. These were actual bombs, and you don't need to think these guys are terrorist masterminds to see that. You don't need to see them as anything other fucked up kids to think that exploding a bomb designed to kill and maim in a crowded city should carry the stiffest legal penalties.

I'd also point out that the death toll of the bombs is 3 times that of all X-Games ever, so that comment, in addition to being glib and insulting to people who lost loved ones, is also demonstrably wrong.
posted by Bulgaroktonos at 1:00 PM on April 23, 2013 [4 favorites]


He had not yet been given a Miranda warning.

Oops, misread "had" as "has." One little letter changes everything.

posted by mudpuppie at 1:01 PM on April 23, 2013


Before or after being Mirandized?

If before, this thing is about to go up to 24 or 25 out of 10 on the shitstorm-o-meter.


There was an article posted previously in this thread (I will try to find it), that said one of the recent terrorism suspects confessed pre-Miranda during interrogation under the public safety exception, and that the confession was considered admissible in court to be used in court during the opening arguments. The defendant pleaded guilty though so the case didn't actually continue past that point and it didn't end up mattering.
posted by burnmp3s at 1:02 PM on April 23, 2013


I would guess (which is a hilariously productive thing for a non-lawyer to do, I know!) that the sticking point on the use of the public safety exception would come in the interpretation of what information was legitimately in the realm of "limited and focused" interrogation, and whether stuff said by the suspect that wasn't relevant to legitimate questioning would still be considered admissible.

So, on the first point, maybe there could be an argument over whether e.g. "did you plant the bombs at the marathon?" is actually a question to which that limited-and-focused concept applies to, since on the one hand his identity as one of the bombers would be pretty materially relevant to his ability to give further info about other existing bombs or plans, but on the other hand there's nothing specifically vital to the ongoing public safety in getting that information itself.

On the second point, what if he responds to a more to-the-point question like "are there more bombs we need to be aware of?" with some rambling declaration of guilt about the existing bombs? Does anything he say in response to a direct and focused question, even stuff that's both (a) self-incriminating and (b) clearly not an answer to the question asked, fall under the umbrella of that exception?

Whether anything will end up happening in the case that clarifies the interpretation of the exception is probably anybody's guess (and maybe some or all of this has been clarified in fact in previous cases?) but it's an interesting thing in any case.
posted by cortex at 1:02 PM on April 23, 2013 [1 favorite]


Before or after being Mirandized?

If before, this thing is about to go up to 24 or 25 out of 10 on the shitstorm-o-meter.


If the prosecution tries to present a non-mirandized confession as evidence in his trial, yeah. But they don't don't really need an admission of guilt from him to get a conviction, given the brothers propensity for doing stuff in front of security cameras and witness.

(There are concerns about a suspect being interrogated without being Mirandized anyway, but they don't need to use statements from him as evidence, and probably won't try to so.)
posted by nangar at 1:05 PM on April 23, 2013


So they seriously hurt 20 people with their two "WMD's." How many got killed at Newtown again with a plain ole automatic rifle?
posted by localroger at 1:05 PM on April 23, 2013


I agree with those who say it doesn't seem to matter because they don't need the confession to convict.
posted by Miko at 1:05 PM on April 23, 2013


So they seriously hurt 20 people with their two "WMD's."

They "seriously hurt" many more than 20 people - those are just the ones who were killed or lost limbs completely.
posted by Miko at 1:06 PM on April 23, 2013


Rachel Maddow had a whole segment last night

That Maddow segment was weird. I've never seen her so breathlessly sensational before. "Drugs!" "Murder!" "But there's no proven connection" "Drugs! Murder!" "Repeat, not sure they are connected." "Terrorism!" Like she's finally given in to the dark side of the news industry. I hope it was just a blip.
posted by 0 at 1:06 PM on April 23, 2013 [7 favorites]


I agree with those who say it doesn't seem to matter because they don't need the confession to convict.

Of course not, but this is a hell of a lot easier, and probably emotionally better for the victims and their families than a long, drawn-out trial/circus.
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 1:07 PM on April 23, 2013 [1 favorite]




0, that was my impression, too. I think that as a Mass. resident, this must be very close to home for her and her family.
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 1:08 PM on April 23, 2013


You've still not articulated a reason why the name of the crime matters. They're facing exactly the same penalty that someone who used a gun to kill someone in a state with the death penalty would face. The difference that you're so het up about is entirely semantic.
posted by Bulgaroktonos at 1:08 PM on April 23, 2013 [3 favorites]


TPS, that video you linked is awesome.

something in my eye.
posted by Miko at 1:08 PM on April 23, 2013


I actually haven't seen any firm figures for how the injuries were distributed once you get past the amputations, but from the videos and the time it the injury count to start to edge above 50 I am still puzzled as to how these devices are in any way a more serious weapon than an AR with a 30 round clip.
posted by localroger at 1:11 PM on April 23, 2013


Of course not, but this is a hell of a lot easier, and probably emotionally better for the victims and their families than a long, drawn-out trial/circus.

Good reason to release the news then.
posted by Miko at 1:11 PM on April 23, 2013


tabloids are full of breathless speculation along these lines

Good to see the unnamed Waltham investigator practicing restraint in his comments to the press.

A Waltham investigator who called the murders "the worst bloodbath I have ever seen in a long law enforcement career" said Tsarnaev has now proven he had the propensity for the type of violence that unfolded two years ago.

"There was no forced entry, it was clear that the victims had let the killer in. And their throats were slashed right out of an al Qaeda training video. The drugs and money on the bodies was very strange," the investigator said.

posted by wensink at 1:12 PM on April 23, 2013


Before or after being Mirandized?

If before, this thing is about to go up to 24 or 25 out of 10 on the shitstorm-o-meter.


They don't need a confession to convict him.
posted by empath at 1:13 PM on April 23, 2013 [1 favorite]


I actually haven't seen any firm figures for how the injuries were distributed once you get past the amputations, but from the videos and the time it the injury count to start to edge above 50 I am still puzzled as to how these devices are in any way a more serious weapon than an AR with a 30 round clip.

You probably don't realize how ghoulish this sounds.
posted by BobbyVan at 1:13 PM on April 23, 2013 [6 favorites]


They're facing exactly the same penalty that someone who used a gun to kill someone in a state with the death penalty would face.

Except that they're in a state with no death penalty. That might make, you know, something of a practical difference in this case.
posted by localroger at 1:14 PM on April 23, 2013


The Elvis impersonating guy suspected of the ricin letters was released.

And the guy who he's been telling everyone wanted to frame him for it had his house raided. This thing is getting weird(er).
posted by zombieflanders at 1:14 PM on April 23, 2013 [2 favorites]


Lindsey Graham continues to offer his well-reasoned and thoughtful opinion on Fox News: "I could care less about the trial. A first year law student could do this trial."

Here's the funny thing: At many law schools, (including Senator Graham's alma mater), CrimLaw is a 1L course, but CrimPro (which is generally where you learn about all the 4A-6A issues) is 2L course.
posted by Dr. Zira at 1:15 PM on April 23, 2013 [1 favorite]


Except that they're in a state with no death penalty

I don't think that makes a difference in a federal case, does it?
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 1:15 PM on April 23, 2013


Any chance of there being a Norwegian style inquiry into his mental health?
posted by knapah at 1:15 PM on April 23, 2013


This is a point of pedantry for you and nothing will move you from it, so there's not a lot of point continuing to engage. I agree that high-capacity guns are terribly deadly, that's uncontroversial. Beyond that I see nothing to be gained from quibbling.

Some part of this might be that we don't have separate statutes for bombs, land mines, field ordnance, booby traps, etc. "WMD" works pretty well - the user isn't aiming at individuals and trying to kill them, he's trying to kill undifferentiated people, en masse. Mass destruction.
posted by Miko at 1:16 PM on April 23, 2013 [3 favorites]


Boston.com News ‏: Mayor Menino and Governor Patrick announce One Fund has raised $20 million for marathon bombing victims.
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 1:19 PM on April 23, 2013 [1 favorite]


localroger, what is your deal? Are you more concerned that the lethality of semi-automatic weapons is understated, or that the lethality of pressure cooker bombs is overstated? If it's the former, then there's an open gun control thread. If it's the latter, then what is your desired remedy?
posted by tonycpsu at 1:20 PM on April 23, 2013 [1 favorite]


The surviving suspect in the Boston Marathon attack has told investigators that he and his brother got instructions on building bombs from an online magazine published by al Qaeda, federal law enforcement officials told NBC News.

I swear to god, if said magazine article turns out to be Make a Bomb in the Kitchen of Your Mom I am going to just turn in my badge and guitar and retire to a cabin in the mountains.
posted by cortex at 1:21 PM on April 23, 2013 [9 favorites]


roomthreeseventeen: "I don't think that makes a difference in a federal case, does it?"

Indirectly, in that the jury pool in a D.Mass trial is coming from a state which has chosen to abolish capital punishment.
posted by Dr. Zira at 1:22 PM on April 23, 2013 [1 favorite]


Sidenote of no relevance: Dr Zira's posts, all full of that delicious talk about law facts, give me a knowledge boner, NO SHIT.
posted by youandiandaflame at 1:25 PM on April 23, 2013 [2 favorites]


Joe Walsh is a real winner: "We need to profile, even when it comes to our immigration policy," spat Walsh on MSNBC's Martin Bashir show. "
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 1:25 PM on April 23, 2013


I really, really hate Joe Walsh, because I see his insane opinions infrequently enough that every time I do see one, my first reaction is "Oh no, Joe Walsh has become a crazy right winger!"
posted by Flunkie at 1:32 PM on April 23, 2013 [6 favorites]


Dzhokhar Tsarnaev: The Big Issue Is Not Miranda, It’s Presentment is the article I was referring to above. From the article:

The best–quite similar–example is the 2009 UndieBomber, who was interviewed for about 50 minutes under a public safety exception when he was captured. That entire interrogation was deemed admissible and in fact formed a significant part of the opening arguments in his trial (which didn’t get much further than opening arguments before he plead guilty). So the UndieBomber’s case is one reason the Administration is confident they could question Dzhokhar without Mirandizing him at first (though the length of time has gotten far longer than used with the UndieBomber).
posted by burnmp3s at 1:36 PM on April 23, 2013


Thank you, Flunkie. After seeing that just now, I immediately started Googling, thinking "Oh no! Can the laid-back, humorous guitar god of Funk No. 49 and Rocky Mountain Way have turned into a right wing nutjob?!"
posted by Miko at 1:37 PM on April 23, 2013


Joe Walsh is a one term congressman trying to tap dance his child-support arrearaged ass back in to some kind of elected office, why does anyone even listen to him?
posted by readery at 1:39 PM on April 23, 2013 [2 favorites]


A lot of people, including myself, can't help but search for explanations, political, religious or personal for this horrendous act. I can't help looking at the pictures and reading the biographies and thinking these boys were millimeters from success and happiness, and yet they chose murder and destruction. How strange. But also how not strange.

For one: like many have said before, a lot of young people border on sociopathy. It's something chemical, I've been told. When we are young, we joke about it, for instance rape-jokes are common, and then "surprise!" a group of privileged guys actually rape a girl or several and everyone acts like no one had a clue. Girls rob or blackmail older guys. Kids steal clothes, beer, whatever. Most kids see it all as a kind of game or joke, and know how to keep on the right side of line, but some don't. 99% grow out of this. Specially if they weren't caught during the bad phase.

Second: these guys are not only from a broken family, they were literally left by their parents. Neither mom nor dad stayed on for them. They were on their own. I see Tamerlan's trip to Russia as an attempt to find a family and a home, and it was in every way a disaster: he spoke as little Russian as English, and in Russia that is a far greater problem than in the US, a nation very tolerant of cultural differences. I know all you 19-25 year olds see yourselves as adults, and that is a good thing. You should be proud of yourselves. But reality is that these kids were very young adults being abandoned because of the parent's personal issues. All of the stuff the parents are saying is the worst b******* I've ever heard, a scary mix of lies and ignorance in every direction. If I were a Bostonian, I'd sue those parents.

Third: Salafists are our version of early 20th century anarchists or 1970's radical leftists, or modern-times fascists in Europe. Fringe crazies with far too much influence through fear. They are barely muslim, in the sense that they disregard 1000+ years of Islamic theology in favor of something on the internet. I bet that the Saudi clerics who promoted it have regretted a hundred times (but are too stupid-proud to call it all back).

And now to something different. My grandparents were all terrorists. It was a different time and age, and they saw themselves as freedom fighters. I am proud of them, and I personally see them as freedom fighters. But everyone of them fit three out of three of the above points. And they did drugs.

I am not at all equating the Tsarnaev brothers with freedom fighters. In my view, they were/are criminals, and Dzokhar deserves lifetime in prison. What I am saying is that a being abandoned and lost during youth can have really dire consequences, and that we are only lucky that for most people, it turns out good, or at least semi-good. There are some, very, very rare cases over the course of history where the desperation and energy of lost youth can serve a purpose, and all lost youths will always claim to be at such a point in history. But most aren't. So yeah, it's complicated.

I'm not excusing these criminals, and I'm not imagining we can ever completely end this type of crime. What I think I'm trying to describe is something inspired by Hannah Arendt- the scary banality of evil. These guys are not special. They are ignorant, and lost in their lives, and they are self-obsessed, not able to understand life as a process which takes time and involves multitudes.
For this reason, I wish we could stop talking about Islam and religion in general in this context. Or even politics. I think for mental health reasons, we need to stop taking the claims of this type of criminals seriously.

As an eternal optimist, I imagine the swift procedure in Boston will scare off idiots more efficiently than wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

(I'm aware that as a consequence, there are a lot of so-called leaders we shouldn't take seriously either. And I agree with that, too).
posted by mumimor at 1:40 PM on April 23, 2013 [22 favorites]


I love firefighters, have benefitted from their work, and count them among current friends, family, and people I grew up with. That doesn't make them less a part of, or make them less identify with, the law enforcement matrix of which they're a part.

Yes, I can see that. I think I failed to make my thinking behind explicit (again..sigh..). It was this: In NYC after 911, there was a period of time that the firefighters were down at the Ground Zero combing through the wreckage looking for the remains or belongings of their fallen fellow firefighters (And I can't write this without getting choked up actually...I definitely have a touch of the ole PTSD lingering about, be on the lookout for that Bostonians, it creeps up on you and can linger...), looking for their dead 343 dead firefighter and paramedic friends , anything that could be used for the funerals and that could be given to the family. The FDNY funerals went on for months. Of course they were also looking for and finding remains of the victims. Any thing that had a protein aspect was put through DNA testing for identification. For many people in those towers, not a trace was ever found, the destruction was simply to all encompassing.

After a period of time, which I'm blanking on right now exactly how long that was, possibly two weeks, maybe a bit longer or a bit shorter than that, Guiliani ordered to the firemen to stop going to Ground Zero. I'm not sure what the thinking was, but I know that the NYPD and the FDNY had been butting heads down there, and I think the NYPD brass felt they couldn't secure the area without the FDNY clearing out, but I guess to be fair here, there were all sorts of risks too health there as the air was permeated with all manner of toxic shit from asbestos and burning electronics and dioxins and so on and so forth.

Anyhow, the FDNY refused. And finally Guiliani ordered the NYPD down there and there was literally almost a war that broke out between the two camps, and I'm talking a fucking massive sized brawl the likes of which this town probably hadn't seen since the Tammany Hall Draft Riots of 1863.

Somehow, although there were tons of scuffles and arrests made, the FDNY agreed to clear the area, but they didn't do it happily and they despised Guiliani until he left as Mayor, and even fought really hard to quash his hopes for the presidency. I think a lot of them also despised the GOP, but perhaps that's wishful thinking on my part. Also, things between the FDNY and the NYPD took a very long time to normalize.

As a whole, I've come the conclusion that firemen are whole different breed of person than a cop.
They're committed to saving life and will put themselves in HUGE risks to do so. They're more open-minded, more respectful of people and not anti-intellectual, the fireman's test is incredibly difficult both on the written aspect and the physical test, and many have advance degrees.

Whereas most morons can pass the cops test, enjoy the need to for power over others, and that such a service tends to attract bullies and morons with a simple GED.
posted by Skygazer at 1:40 PM on April 23, 2013 [2 favorites]


"Oh no! Can the laid-back, humorous guitar god of Funk No. 49 and Rocky Mountain Way have turned into a right wing nutjob?!"

Lucky he's sane after all he's been through.
posted by octobersurprise at 1:44 PM on April 23, 2013 [5 favorites]


These guys are not special.

I see what you mean, but most alienated and unhappy young men don't actually seek to kill and maim their fellow citizens. These guys were different, even if they aren't unique.

I also don't see why we shouldn't take their claims of religious motivation seriously. We've known for centuries or millenia that religion is sometimes a powerful motivating force for all sorts of good and bad behavior. In the modern, secular world it is tempting to believe that religious ideology doesn't matter and this is all just about mental health, but (1) I think that argument overstates the relationship between mental illness and violent behavior and (2) places too little emphasis on the place religion can play for many people.
posted by Area Man at 1:47 PM on April 23, 2013 [1 favorite]




Mod note: Edited your url, youandiandaflame; not a big deal, but please don't use shortened urls like bit.ly links on mefi, it doesn't serve a purpose here and makes it harder for folks to know where you're linking to before they click.
posted by cortex (staff) at 1:53 PM on April 23, 2013 [1 favorite]


Whereas most morons can pass the cops test, enjoy the need to for power over others, and that such a service tends to attract bullies and morons with a simple GED.

The police officers I've known often get degrees at 2 or 4-year colleges, typically community colleges or lower-tier public universities. They often study law enforcement or criminology. There are certainly are some officers who are bullies, but I think you paint with too broad a brush. I've known plenty of good officers who really do believe in public service. Like firefighters, police officers put themselves at risk. Walking a beat is risky, getting called to a domestic abuse incident is risky, etc.
posted by Area Man at 1:55 PM on April 23, 2013 [4 favorites]


Two interesting things from this new story:

1) Tamerlan was influenced by a mysterious person named Misha; and
2) Tamerlan was influenced by the conspiracy site Infowars (!!)
posted by (Arsenio) Hall and (Warren) Oates at 1:57 PM on April 23, 2013 [16 favorites]




2) Tamerlan was influenced by the conspiracy site Infowars (!!)

This will wendell.
posted by Nonsteroidal Anti-Inflammatory Drug at 2:04 PM on April 23, 2013 [3 favorites]


Tamerlan was influenced by the conspiracy site Infowars (!!)

That is fucking perfect.
posted by Elementary Penguin at 2:05 PM on April 23, 2013 [4 favorites]


Tamerlan was influenced by the conspiracy site Infowars (!!)

I'm loving this.

But if you believe in conspiracy theories and read Infowars, wouldn't this just confirm in your mind that Infowars got too close to the *real story*?
posted by BobbyVan at 2:13 PM on April 23, 2013 [5 favorites]


Are the Tsarnaev brothers white?

Yep. They are not only white, they are white straight from the Ur-source of whiteness--purer white than most white supremacists could ever dream of being. The fact that some right-wingers are denying this shows just what a muddle of misconceptions, lies and ignorance the concept of race in America is.
posted by saulgoodman at 2:14 PM on April 23, 2013 [10 favorites]


Miko: Well, I think you need some historical perspective here. This isn't really true. If you care to examine American history, there are many, many points just in the last century where there was an intensified policing effort which encroached upon civil liberties, and then a period of less overt presence. It also matters what populations you look at: just because people now considered majority culture are experiencing policing more now doesn't mean that immigrants who weren't yet considered white, Native Americans, religious minorities, and blacks haven't experienced this intensity of policing at periods over the nation's history. I'm not saying this isn't a problem, I'm saying that it's fair to raise the historical question of whether this is something truly new, or something simply more visible to the majority these days.

I understand what your saying there and that is a compelling argument with much validity, but what I was referring to (and once again!!) failed to point to make explicit in my comment is that I was referring to the no-tolerance broken windows theory of policing that took hold here in NYC in the early 90s with Guiliani as Mayor and William Bratton as his Chief of police, (and even earlier perhaps in Boston when Bratton was Chief of the BPD, although I doubt he was given the amount of leeway Guiliani gave him to revamp NYPD techniques).

The theory goes back to a 1982 article by social scientists James Q. Wilson and George L. Kelling in The Atlantic Monthly. The main gist is that if you punish and go after the small offenses (window breaking of abandoned buildings), open beer bottles, nuisance stuff and don't tolerate those victimless semi-scofflaws it creates an atmosphere of strong police presence that effects the perpetration of greater crimes like muggings and robberies etc, but those people breaking those small laws usually are also the criminals who're committing the greater crimes and can lead to the arrest of those people committing greater crimes.

In my view, it basically treats every single person, as not only a potential criminal but a de facto criminal. It criminalizes a whole community. Ergo the police treat one and all as criminals and demand absolute respect and abeyance. Does that sound familiar??

It should, because Bratton's incorporation of that into the NYPD in the early 90s was fantastically successful, and every single Goddamned police force in the country adopted the
broken windows" approach to policing and incorporated it into their police academies and training methodologies.

It's the reason police are so harsh nowadays and people get tasered for the most minor and ridiculous things. "Broken Windows" allows for ZERO back and forth and police are trained to be in absolute control of a situation at all times. That means if you do not comply with whatever an officer tells you quickly enough will be slammed to the ground and handcuffed, and if you complain you'll be charged with resisting arrest on top of it.

Personally, I think Bratton's success had a lot to do with other societal factors including the assimilation of young african-americans into the work place and a natural cyclical decline in the birthrate of that demographic that breeds criminals (I think something like 16 to 24 yrs old).

At any rate, that genie is NOT going back into the bottle. Combine it with the patriot act, a supreme court that has enlarged police powers, and going on a trillion dollars in DHS spending on LE (it was already at $635 Billion in 2011), and that's not even counting State and Local expenditures or the myriad Federal agencies overseeing other monies being spread out to police departments all over the country and it's really a matter of time before that weaponry mixes with some bully COP who probably never read a book in his life, and it gets used against innocent people. And there's a conflagration.

Yeah, so to re-iterate: That genie is out of the bottle and it's going to be hell, getting it back in there..
posted by Skygazer at 2:15 PM on April 23, 2013 [2 favorites]


Contrary to what is alleged by bigots like Bill Maher, Muslims are not more violent than people of other religions. Murder rates in most of the Muslim world are very low compared to the United States. Terrorism and the other Religions is an interesting article by Juan Cole, a Professor of History at the University of Michigan, from an informative blog named Informed Comment - Thoughts on the Middle East, History and Religion.

Because this thread is about Boston and the impact of a terrorist act there, I thought of the numerous comments above thread which mentioned the Irish Republican army, the IRA.

There is - has been - a group of people in Boston who have been -allegedly - funding terrorists via a group called NorAid for decades and it's widely known around the world, Boston's longstanding connection to supporting the IRA terrorists.

Inside The Ira - Weapons & Technology | The Ira & Sinn Fein

> "The two main sources of weaponry for the IRA have been the USA and Libya."

c1982-88 "Group of IRA supporters jailed in Boston in 1990 for trying to smuggle a home-made missile system to Ireland. Member of group is also believed to have supplied detonators in 1982-88."

1986 "FBI 'sting' foils plot to fly arms cargo by private jet from Boston to Ireland. Several convictions followed."

posted by nickyskye at 2:15 PM on April 23, 2013 [3 favorites]


Lemurrhea: Are the Tsarnaev brothers white?

Interesting article. Probably depends on your definition of "white", so it's moot to speculate on it.

But the link mentions another article by David Shirota titled "Let’s Hope the Boston Marathon Bomber Is a White American." That certainly does strike a chord, since before the Tsarnaev brothers were identified, I found myself thinking: pleasedon'tletthembymuslimspleasedon'tletthembymuslimspleasedon'tletthembymuslims.
Let them be white supremacists (and lifelong NRA members!) who were plotting to overthrow Obama.

Yet here we are...
posted by sour cream at 2:16 PM on April 23, 2013


Then, in 2008 or 2009, Tamerlan met Misha, a slightly older, heavyset bald man with a long reddish beard. Khozhugov didn't know where they'd met but believed they attended a Boston-area mosque together. Misha was an Armenian native and a convert to Islam and quickly began influencing his new friend, family members said.

How many red-bearded Armenian converts to Islam can there be in the Boston area? This guy should be easy for the FBI to identify.
posted by Area Man at 2:17 PM on April 23, 2013 [2 favorites]


This guy should be easy for the FBI to identify.

Or Reddit!!
posted by (Arsenio) Hall and (Warren) Oates at 2:18 PM on April 23, 2013 [9 favorites]


I know someone who takes dance lessons with her. It's so horribly sad, but he says she's a perpetually optimistic person. He expects her to do well.
posted by alms at 2:19 PM on April 23, 2013


Probably depends on your definition of "white", so it's moot to speculate on it.

There's no speculation. The Caucasus mountain region is where so-called white people originated. It's where we get the word for being white. No definition that isn't just purely pulled out of one's ass is going to change that.
posted by saulgoodman at 2:20 PM on April 23, 2013 [4 favorites]


Caucasus mountains, not Caucus.
posted by sweetkid at 2:21 PM on April 23, 2013


Joe Walsh* on Joe Walsh*: "Ordinary Average Guy".
Glenn Frey on Joe Walsh*: "An interesting bunch of guys."**
Neither cared to comment on Joe Walsh (congressman).

  * The musician.
** This while Joe's thirty year party was still on.
posted by Herodios at 2:22 PM on April 23, 2013


All this "no Muslim" or "no true Muslim" stuff is a bit off, presumably coming mostly from people who are not Muslim themselves, and likely have had very little direct contact with Islam in their lives.

It's like saying "no true Christian would go to war" and supporting this by cherry-picking one particular quote from the Bible, like one of the 10 commandments. Or saying "no true Christian would support gay marriage" with another cherry-picked quote from the Old Testament.

Just as Christianity is not a homogeneous bloc, ranging from the Westboro Baptists to Latin American Catholicism to Ethiopian, Coptic & Orthodox Christianity (amongst others) Islam is not a unified bloc either, and in particular because unlike Christianity, there is no privileged person like a priest, bishop or pope to intermediate between an individual and God/Allah.

Imams in Islam do not fulfil the same role as the Clergy in Christianity or the Rabbis in Judaism, and have no authoritative exigetical position with respect to the Koran, so each individual Muslim is more free to interpret the holy text as they see fit.
posted by UbuRoivas at 2:22 PM on April 23, 2013 [2 favorites]


Alms, is super duper fucking badass synonymous with perpetually optimistic? Because seriously: “Hell, yeah, I’ve had plenty [of dark moments]. I’ve thrown my walker across the room and haven’t used it yet. But I realized you have to be selfish about the things that matter the most. My husband. The job I love. Dancing is my life. Yeah, having my foot blown off, that really sucks. But I can’t wallow in woe is me."

When I grow up, I want to be just like Adrianne Haslet-Davis.
posted by youandiandaflame at 2:23 PM on April 23, 2013 [2 favorites]


Caucasus mountains, not Caucus.
Sorry--I'm troubleshooting/debugging a server configuration problem with the other half of my brain at the moment.

I mean--yeah. I know. That's exactly what I said!!! Sheesh! ;) /abuse of edit window
posted by saulgoodman at 2:23 PM on April 23, 2013 [2 favorites]


Are the Tsarnaev brothers white?

Heh, well they're certainly Caucasian.
posted by nickyskye at 2:24 PM on April 23, 2013 [1 favorite]


From Wikipedia:
Caucasian race (also Caucasoid) is the general physical type of some or all of the populations of Europe, North Africa, the Horn of Africa, Western Asia/Middle East, Asia Minor, Central Asia and Pakistan in South Asia.Historically, the term was used for many people from these regions, without regard necessarily to skin tone.

Obviously common usage has dropped some groups out of the running due to "skin tone."

People are essentially so much alike that all this crap really bums me out.
posted by sweetkid at 2:26 PM on April 23, 2013 [2 favorites]


Now that the diverse white American peoples are becoming a minority in many states, counties, and cities, we wanted to let you know that we have the right to name and label ourselves. And we don’t like being called a word that sounds like “cock-Asian.”

Check please.
posted by Holy Zarquon's Singing Fish at 2:26 PM on April 23, 2013


Good. Now the Feds offer him life without parole in exchange for a guilty plea and we can get this over with.

In barely-related news, just a few weeks ago the Aurora theater shooter offered to plead guilty in return for avoiding the death penalty, and was turned down. They are going the whole nine yards.
posted by Rhomboid at 2:27 PM on April 23, 2013


From the Chechnya wiki ...

Caucasian Wars

In order to secure communications with Georgia and other regions of the Transcaucasia, the Russian Empire began spreading its influence into the Caucasus mountains. The current resistance to Russian rule has its roots in the late 18th century (1785–1791), a period when Russia expanded into territories formerly under the dominion of Turkey and Persia.
posted by philip-random at 2:27 PM on April 23, 2013 [1 favorite]


But if you believe in conspiracy theories and read Infowars, wouldn't this just confirm in your mind that Infowars got too close to the *real story*?

The conspiracy is coming from inside the website!
posted by zombieflanders at 2:29 PM on April 23, 2013 [7 favorites]


Probably depends on your definition of "white", so it's moot to speculate on it.

There's no speculation. The Caucus mountain region is where so-called white people originated. It's where we get the word for being white. No definition that isn't just purely pulled out of one's ass is going to change that.


Doesn't that require you to buy into now-discredited theories about race? My inclination is to say that there isn't some objective standard of whiteness. What makes someone "white" is if they and other people think they are white. In Russia, they'd be called black. In the U.S., probably white. They lived in the U.S. long enough to be exposed to and absorb our bizarre system of racial categories, but I don't see race as a particularly useful way to think about these guys.
posted by Area Man at 2:30 PM on April 23, 2013 [8 favorites]


In Russia, they'd be called black.

What? Why?
posted by griphus at 2:31 PM on April 23, 2013


The awesomest thing about "caucasian" is this bit from Wikipedia:

"The concept of a Caucasian race or Varietas Caucasia was developed around 1800 by Johann Friedrich Blumenbach... [he] named it after the Caucasian peoples (from the Southern Caucasus region), whom he considered to be the archetype for the grouping. He based his classification of the Caucasian race primarily on craniology"

So all white people are the same because CRANIOLOGY FROM 1800. SEEMS LEGIT.
posted by GuyZero at 2:31 PM on April 23, 2013 [15 favorites]


Er, specifically: there is no term for "black person" in Russian that would in any way encompass Chechens.
posted by griphus at 2:33 PM on April 23, 2013 [3 favorites]


In Russia, they'd be called black.

What? Why?


Because of their hair I'd assume, like the Black Irish.

Believe it or not, some places have racial identity constructs that do not focus solely on skin colour.
posted by GuyZero at 2:34 PM on April 23, 2013 [2 favorites]


Doesn't that require you to buy into now-discredited theories about race?

Yep. Which is why I remarked earlier about what a mess of lies and misconceptions the concept of race in America is...
posted by saulgoodman at 2:34 PM on April 23, 2013 [2 favorites]


Tamerlan was influenced by the conspiracy site Infowars (!!)

Don't know if this is a Boston thing or not, but:

Yah, I got ya false flag right heah!
posted by Trochanter at 2:35 PM on April 23, 2013


Or, to be fair, maybe Area Man made that up. I don't claim to know anything about Russia really.
posted by GuyZero at 2:35 PM on April 23, 2013 [1 favorite]


Psst, griphus knows a thing or three about Russia.
posted by shakespeherian at 2:35 PM on April 23, 2013 [3 favorites]


griphus: the eXile: How To Spot A Chechen
posted by the man of twists and turns at 2:38 PM on April 23, 2013 [3 favorites]


As a whole, I've come the conclusion that firemen are whole different breed of person than a cop.
They're committed to saving life and will put themselves in HUGE risks to do so. They're more open-minded, more respectful of people and not anti-intellectual, the fireman's test is incredibly difficult both on the written aspect and the physical test, and many have advance degrees.

Whereas most morons can pass the cops test, enjoy the need to for power over others, and that such a service tends to attract bullies and morons with a simple GED.


I witnessed everything you did in 9/11 from pretty close, and though the account is correct I really did not come out of it the way you did, with a higher opinion of firefighters than cops external to any other conditions. I think that's something idiosyncratic. Some firefighters do not like the GOP much, but that's often at least partly because they're unionized. As a bloc, they have, unfortunately, contributed to the culture of fear - I stand by that.

As far as Broken Windows, and yes I suspect that most of us above a certain age are quite familiar with that theory and the policy that resulted...I wonder if you just really have a NYC-centric perspective on all that, because I don't believe it's really been very influential outside of the Guiliani era. But when I think about it, the excesses of the Giuliani era have made my friends who lived in NYC then much more sensitive to and afraid of police than they were before, or than people are who did not experience that. Also, it wasn't the theory but the application that produced negative results. Giuiliani's tactics were all extreme, but there has been a lot of evidence for the broken-windows theory, and I believe that attending to those visible, social-landscape cues is one important part of community function. Not all, but part. Anyway, I think it's important to separate theoretical from applied social policy here - the applied version did not closely resemble the theoretical version.

I was reflecting that, in the Boston area, you pretty much have every condition that makes for good policing. Police live in or near the communities in which they work. They are drawn from the region's own population and know the place and its history and culture well. They are visible and present at peaceful events and on the streets as well as during problems. They are organized in such a way that they can do neighborhood policing, not just get called in when something's going down. They are involved in charity and municipal events, are generally accessible and accountable. As police systems go (and all of them have risks), this is kind of what community activists who have bad policing wish for.

So it's incongruent to hear "you should hate your police," when in fact, I think the region has a pretty functional police system that people are justifiably relatively comfortable with. It is a region not shy about having opinions and sharing them, and which is pretty empowered-feeling in general, so I am certain that if any great excesses happened, we'll hear about them and they will be dealt with. Not everyone has a great police system, and that's a problem, but this system has many of the qualities that people who hate police critique their police for not having. IF that makes sense.
posted by Miko at 2:40 PM on April 23, 2013 [4 favorites]


Er, specifically: there is no term for "black person" in Russian that would in any way encompass Chechens.
posted by griphus at 4:33 PM on April 23 [+][!]


Aren't people from the caucusus sometimes described as "chorniye"? I remembered that from my brief time there and this NY Times article (admittedly not written by a Russian) suggested the same thing.
posted by Area Man at 2:42 PM on April 23, 2013 [1 favorite]


How the Irish became white

It's almost like some of you think whiteness is an objective state with clearly defined, permanent boundaries.
posted by knapah at 2:42 PM on April 23, 2013 [13 favorites]


CNN is reporting Suffolk County DA is not going to seek charges at this time. That doesn't mean they won't ever, but it sounds like they're leaning toward not expending resources on a state trial.
posted by Dr. Zira at 2:43 PM on April 23, 2013


localroger: "I actually haven't seen any firm figures for how the injuries were distributed once you get past the amputations, but from the videos and the time it the injury count to start to edge above 50 I am still puzzled as to how these devices are in any way a more serious weapon than an AR with a 30 round clip."

Again, this returns to what a weapon is designed to do.

Bombs are indiscriminate weapons. A bomb explodes and affects those within its blast radius. Theoretically, a bomb can kill a mass of people, all at once, without targeting individuals.

Guns are discriminate weapons. Even those that fire automatically. You point a gun at an individual and shoot them. Theoretically, an automatically-firing gun can also kill a mass of people, but only by targeting/shooting them individually. One at a time.

Serious/unserious/lethality/body count analyses aside, I believe you are comparing apples and oranges.
posted by zarq at 2:44 PM on April 23, 2013 [1 favorite]




Are the Tsarnaev brothers white?

Oh, I know this one. The answer is "Why is this important to you?".
posted by benito.strauss at 2:47 PM on April 23, 2013 [15 favorites]


Google Books has a few references for chernozhopye as "black-asses", a derogatory term.
posted by GuyZero at 2:48 PM on April 23, 2013 [1 favorite]


AP photographer who lost lower leg in Afghanistan offers support to Boston amputees.

When a soldier who had lost both arms and legs teasingly called me "Paper Cut" for my lesser wounds, I called him "Trunk" and we laughed.
posted by maggieb at 2:50 PM on April 23, 2013 [2 favorites]


"I've seen this before," Jones said. "The federal government trying to connect me to tragedies. That's the media and the government's own conspiracy theories."

"Am I being reckless and inflammatory? Maybe. Or maybe that's just what they want you to think! The only way we'll find out is for me to keep it, and my ratings, up!"
posted by evidenceofabsence at 2:54 PM on April 23, 2013


"He [Jones] also claimed that Dzhokhar Tsarnaev's throat wound had been inflicted by the authorities, calling it "that special throat surgery they did."

Jesus, I cannot imagine what it feels like to be that fucking crazy and either not have any idea or not even care.
posted by youandiandaflame at 2:55 PM on April 23, 2013


griphus: the eXile: How To Spot A Chechen
...
Aren't people from the caucusus sometimes described as "chorniye"?
...
Google Books has a few references for chernozhopye as "black-asses", a derogatory term.

Huh. I may have heard it used for Azerbaijani and Georgians -- 99% it's what you would call a person of Sub-Saharan African descent ("chorniye," not "chernozhopye ") -- but never Chechens, although that could very well be confirmation bias because Chechens did not come up in conversation very often and also I live in and encounter Russian people only in America.

That being said, in Russian, referring to the sort of person an American would describe as "black" and referring to a Caucasian as "black" doesn't really create any sort of comparison between the two because of the context. That is, I doubt anyone would ever refer to a group of African-Americans, Namibians and Chechens standing together as "those black people over there" whereas you would do that with a group of African-Americans and Namibians sans Chechens.
posted by griphus at 2:56 PM on April 23, 2013


Christ, that's unclear. Ok, to put it really simply: one would not refer, civilly, to a Chechen as "black." Only derogatorily.
posted by griphus at 3:00 PM on April 23, 2013


This book notes that Russian troops called Chechens cherniye or chernozhopy and also sometimes obezyany (monkeys). This one says the soldiers called Chechens obezyany and ordinary Russians called them cherniye or chernozhopy.

I was in Moscow in 1996 and I remember some friends of my host family speaking that way. I agree, it doesn't have much to do with conceptions of race in the U.S.
posted by Area Man at 3:04 PM on April 23, 2013 [2 favorites]


Jesus, I cannot imagine what it feels like to be that fucking crazy and either not have any idea or not even care.

Certainty mixed with a confusion that nobody else can see the obvious, I'd imagine.
posted by jaduncan at 3:04 PM on April 23, 2013


Charges dropped against Elvis impersonator.
posted by maggieb at 3:08 PM on April 23, 2013 [1 favorite]


So much for my "ricin' all the time" joke.
posted by hoople at 3:10 PM on April 23, 2013


Who is that spokesperson doing the Boston police news conference?? I could listen to him for hours and hours.
posted by maggieb at 3:14 PM on April 23, 2013


Elementary Penguin: do you know where the SUV crashed before Dzhokhar ditched it?

Not exactly. This tweet hints that he got to Spruce Street. He was driving west on Laurel and probably just went straight across School Street onto Spruce. I didn't see any property damage or broken glass or plastic to indicate an accident there today but that means nothing.
posted by bobobox at 3:27 PM on April 23, 2013


There is - has been - a group of people in Boston who have been -allegedly - funding terrorists via a group called NorAid for decades and it's widely known around the world, Boston's longstanding connection to supporting the IRA terrorists.

Given that Tsarnaev has no known ties to the IRA, can we not go down the "unrelated horrible things Boston has done" conversation in this thread?
posted by sonika at 3:32 PM on April 23, 2013 [4 favorites]


It appears that the On Hand blogger with the pictures of the shootout has taken them down due to the ongoing investigation.
posted by bobobox at 3:32 PM on April 23, 2013 [1 favorite]


Security footage of Dzhokhar using stolen ATM card. (Warning: Daily News link. Expect excess exclamation marks.)
posted by mudpuppie at 3:33 PM on April 23, 2013 [2 favorites]


Chambliss: Law enforcement agency may have known about Boston bombing in advance

Unclear what Sen. Chambliss is referring to here, and the headline doesn't seem supported by the story itself, but this could be a major development.
posted by BobbyVan at 3:39 PM on April 23, 2013


That Daily News story is actually sort of an interesting glimpse that answered a couple questions for me about how the carjacked guy got away.

One of the overwhelming things about this incident is the vast, dizzying number of perspectives. Setting aside even the marathon, the multiplicity of perspectives is nuts - the neighbors in Watertown, the gas station owner guy, the carjacked guy, the people at MIT, the boat-in-yard guy, the next door neighbors, the people watching the firefight from the street- it's quite a box of mirrors.

What's amazing is that all these perspectives, given time and the application of effort, do assemble into a roughly coherent tale. It's not as wildly various as one might expect. But man. There is so much to wade through, so many pieces to piece. I wonder if this might be one of the most documented, most multiply witnessed crimes ever?
posted by Miko at 3:41 PM on April 23, 2013 [7 favorites]


The surviving suspect in the Boston Marathon attack has told investigators that he and his brother got instructions on building bombs from an online magazine published by al Qaeda

Here's the Jihadist Magazine That Taught the Boston Bombers to Kill

Previously, previouslier.
posted by homunculus at 3:58 PM on April 23, 2013 [1 favorite]


Sounds like a job for Anonymous.
posted by (Arsenio) Hall and (Warren) Oates at 4:02 PM on April 23, 2013


cortex: I swear to god, if said magazine article turns out to be Make a Bomb in the Kitchen of Your Mom I am going to just turn in my badge and guitar and retire to a cabin in the mountains.

homonculus: Here's the Jihadist Magazine That Taught the Boston Bombers to Kill
Dzokhar Tsarnaev, has admitted to investigators that he and his brother Tamerlan learned to make pressure cooker bombs by reading Inspire, which ran a detailed feature about explosive-building in its debut issue under the headline "Make a Bomb in the Kitchen of Your Mom."
Truth is stranger than fiction.
posted by syzygy at 4:12 PM on April 23, 2013 [13 favorites]


"unrelated horrible things Boston has done"

A group in Boston, NorAid, has a long and well documented history of endorsing, funding and supplying terrorists who do and have done exactly the same kinds of things the Tsarnaev brothers did, but on a much greater scale. So, it would seem the terrorism topic and Boston are, in fact, related.
posted by nickyskye at 4:14 PM on April 23, 2013


If you're a UK resident (and specifically if you're not 'white British'), then you should be very careful about looking at Inspire and other 'terrorism manuals' as they can be considered illegal to possess under the Terrorism Act 2006.

If you think that this is unlikely to be acted upon, you might want to consider what happened to Rizwaan Sabir and Hicham Yezza when Rizwaan downloaded an Al Qaeda manual (from a US government website) to study in relation to his International Security MA, and sent it to Hich to print it out - The Nottingham Two.
posted by knapah at 4:14 PM on April 23, 2013 [1 favorite]


This is like the 27th time someone talked about the IRA funding in this thread. Unless there is something new to say, I think we get it.
posted by Miko at 4:21 PM on April 23, 2013 [6 favorites]


Guns are discriminate weapons. Even those that fire automatically. You point a gun at an individual and shoot them. Theoretically, an automatically-firing gun can also kill a mass of people, but only by targeting/shooting them individually. One at a time.

I don't think this is the distinction. You can kill people discriminately with a gun, which is way harder to do with a bomb (how are you going to control only the people you're aiming for wander by?). But if you shoot into a crowd, you're doing it with little regard as to who you're aiming for.

I think, also, with automatic fire anyway, accuracy decreases severely because of recoil, so it's debatable how much control you have. I have the idea you see a similar effect if you fire repeatedly in general, though my experience with guns is definitely not applicable in this area. (I've fired a gun with a magazine precisely once.)
posted by hoyland at 4:22 PM on April 23, 2013


It's a quibble.
posted by Miko at 4:23 PM on April 23, 2013


Anyone have a copy of "How to score some bloob while you chew your home-cooked food?"
posted by hoople at 4:25 PM on April 23, 2013 [4 favorites]


Unclear what Sen. Chambliss is referring to here, and the headline doesn't seem supported by the story itself, but this could be a major development.


My guess is he's referring to the fact that the FBI had been watching the brothers and, perhaps, that they did not inform the bpd.
posted by empath at 4:26 PM on April 23, 2013


A group in Boston, NorAid, has a long and well documented history of endorsing, funding and supplying terrorists who do and have done exactly the same kinds of things the Tsarnaev brothers did, but on a much greater scale. So, it would seem the terrorism topic and Boston are, in fact, related.

This is not a thread about Boston's history with terrorism. This is a thread about the Marathon bombing and the perpetrators, the Tsarnaev brothers. None of these events are tied to the IRA. If this is an important discussion for you to have, crafting your own FPP would be more germane than continually tossing it in here.

Again, we get it, but the IRA is in no way related to what happened in Boston last week and this is not a general thread in which the discussion is "Boston's history of terrorism" but specifically talking about the Tsarnaev brothers and the related crimes they committed.
posted by sonika at 4:37 PM on April 23, 2013 [2 favorites]


I'd imagine Chambliss is attempting to score political points and throw someone else under the bus, in as much the same way as people were sacked for letting Pearl Harbor happen.
posted by CancerMan at 4:39 PM on April 23, 2013 [2 favorites]


BobbyVan: "Unclear what Sen. Chambliss is referring to here, and the headline doesn't seem supported by the story itself, but this could be a major development."

Chambliss is stating he thinks there were some communication breakdowns between agencies. Mike McCaul was just on CNN talking about how he finds it difficult to believe they acted alone, and was citing previous instances in which "key individuals" had been able to commit terrorist attacks and had slipped off the FBI's radar.

It's looking like some of our R-congresscritters are sowing their talking points for laying blame on the FBI.
posted by Dr. Zira at 4:41 PM on April 23, 2013 [1 favorite]


cortex: I swear to god, if said magazine article turns out to be Make a Bomb in the Kitchen of Your Mom I am going to just turn in my badge and guitar and retire to a cabin in the mountains.

A damn shame, I'm going to miss the guy. He's done some stellar work here.
posted by Purposeful Grimace at 4:50 PM on April 23, 2013 [11 favorites]


Purposeful Grimace: "A damn shame, I'm going to miss the guy. He's done some stellar work here."

If it's a cabin in Canada, he'll have a lot of company with all the folks who moved up north when Bush got reelected.
posted by Bugbread at 4:56 PM on April 23, 2013 [1 favorite]




Uh, can someone tell me if the Daily Currant is a real paper?
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 5:06 PM on April 23, 2013 [2 favorites]


Poe's Law
posted by Ivan Fyodorovich at 5:06 PM on April 23, 2013 [3 favorites]


Parody site. You can tell by the way it makes the Fox News anchors seem well-informed.
posted by Atom Eyes at 5:07 PM on April 23, 2013 [9 favorites]


Uh, can someone tell me if the Daily Currant is a real paper?

It is not.
posted by Rustic Etruscan at 5:07 PM on April 23, 2013


It is not. It's not even one of the better-written fake newspapers, which is a shame, because nothing's as much of a let down as a solid premise with thudding execution.
posted by cortex at 5:07 PM on April 23, 2013 [3 favorites]


Uh, can someone tell me if the Daily Currant is a real paper?

Is the Pope gay?
posted by Skygazer at 5:11 PM on April 23, 2013


Uh, can someone tell me if the Daily Currant is a real paper?

Parody is its raisin d'etre.
posted by UbuRoivas at 5:17 PM on April 23, 2013 [6 favorites]


BOYLSTON STREET IS RE-OPENING WED. AT 3AM! Which is to say, tonight!!!!!!!!!

To say this is in my backyard is putting it mildly. I have a prescription to pick up on Newbury St and would need to take an eight block detour to get there without crossing Boylston. This is just one *tiny* example of how close this is to me and how much this affects my neighborhood as a whole to have it closed. Everyone I know who lives/works here can't wait to walk down and have it start returning to normal - go back to Starbucks and not have it associated with "being behind the explosion." A friend's son goes to preschool in Old South Church and hasn't been able to attend while the street's been closed and he can start going back and getting back into the old routine. It's been a tough and painful week, both emotionally and just on a basic practical level, to have the barricades up.

I'll admit turning down Fairfield is going to be creepy after seeing the photos of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev fleeing the explosion - but I can't wait to do it and start putting this firmly in the past.
posted by sonika at 5:18 PM on April 23, 2013 [12 favorites]


Given that Tsarnaev has no known ties to the IRA, can we not go down the "unrelated horrible things Boston has done" conversation in this thread?

It looks like it was (last) raised in response to claims that "Islam is a violent religion". (Claims not made by people in the thread, but that claim is certainly going around in the U.S. media.) So I don't take it as an unrelated thing — it's as good a corrective to people trying to create the idea that Christians/Americans as always blameless.
posted by benito.strauss at 5:19 PM on April 23, 2013 [3 favorites]


Oh, great to hear about Boylston re-opening. I'm going to go buy some stuff there tomorrow and try to act as if everything has returned to normal. I'll probably fail on that second part.
posted by benito.strauss at 5:22 PM on April 23, 2013 [1 favorite]


I don't know what businesses will be open - some may be closed due to structural damage - but the street itself opening is a good start.

I may or may not need to buy tissues with my prescriptions. Probably. Odds that I'll cry are near 100%. But still, so very happy the city is moving forward.
posted by sonika at 5:26 PM on April 23, 2013 [2 favorites]


Uh, can someone tell me if the Daily Currant is a real paper?

They were behind the story that Paul Krugman had declared bankruptcy.
posted by homunculus at 5:28 PM on April 23, 2013 [1 favorite]


cortex: I swear to god, if said magazine article turns out to be Make a Bomb in the Kitchen of Your Mom I am going to just turn in my badge and guitar and retire to a cabin in the mountains.

So, where do I send my resumé?
posted by ChurchHatesTucker at 5:36 PM on April 23, 2013 [2 favorites]


Uh, can someone tell me if the Daily Currant is a real paper?

I saw that story making the rounds earlier today and before I knew where it was from, I had to check.

With good ole Snake Oil Sarah, you can never be too sure.
posted by lampshade at 5:37 PM on April 23, 2013 [1 favorite]


From the Sarah Palin link above:

"Well Islamabad is the capital of Pakistan, which isn't Arab," Carlson corrected, "and Tehran is the capital of Iran, which is predominantly Persian. But I do see your point."

"Also Czech Republic isn't really an Arab or even Muslim country, I don't think," Doocy added, "but otherwise what you're saying makes a lot of sense..."


Comedy Central take note.
posted by marienbad at 5:48 PM on April 23, 2013


Don't miss the comments to that Sarah Palin story.
posted by Joe in Australia at 5:54 PM on April 23, 2013 [1 favorite]


In case anybody missed it above:

In the "Better safe than sorry" department: Czech Ambassador Clarifies: His Country And Chechnya ‘Are Two Very Different Entities’.
posted by benito.strauss at 10:56 AM on April 20 [11 favorites +] [!]

posted by UbuRoivas at 6:05 PM on April 23, 2013 [1 favorite]


So, that Daily Currant story has a citation.

The citation is CNN.

Well played, Daily Currant. Well played.
posted by ChurchHatesTucker at 6:06 PM on April 23, 2013 [7 favorites]


I agree with those who say it doesn't seem to matter because they don't need the confession to convict.

Of course not, but this is a hell of a lot easier, and probably emotionally better for the victims and their families than a long, drawn-out trial/circus.


Even if you confess 100 times you are still entitled to a trial. Of course, he could waive his right to a trial and plead guilty. I agree with the others in this thread that have suggested the best outcome his attorneys can get for him at this point is life in prison in exchange for his full cooperation. I think the government will be apt to agree to a disposition of this sort because, as you said, this trial could be traumatic for victims and families. More importantly, it's in the government's interest to keep the lines of communication open. On the other hand, there are political factors to consider. The public might want a big trial, and the feds are guaranteed a victory.

Although a deal could effectively take the death penalty off the table, keep in mind that (1) the death penalty isn't a slam dunk with Mass jurors, even in this case (assuming no venue change); and (2) a death penalty case gives the defense the opportunity to present mitigation evidence including testimony about Dzhokhar's background and evidence that he was under the influence of his brother (speculating on that one). Essentially it would be an extremely drawn out, "Dzhokhar, this is your life", with testimony from teachers, friends, coaches, family, experts, etc. From what we know about Dzhokhar, it's safe to say that the defense could make a strong case against the death penalty (relative to other death penalty defendants). The government probably doesn't want this because (1) they aren't going to want to risk losing the death sentence and (2) they aren't going to want to expose the victims and the public to days of humanizing testimony re: why Dzhokhar deserves mercy.

I think it's also important to clarify that the government hasn't officially declared its intent to seek the death penalty, though it is the max penalty he could face under the law. The federal government has to follow a well-defined policy for reviewing capital cases, with Attorney General Holder ultimately signing off on the decision to seek the death penalty.
posted by murfed13 at 6:08 PM on April 23, 2013 [2 favorites]


Don't miss the comments to that Sarah Palin story.

It's like what whitehouse.org used to be in Dubya's time. Hilarious, the number of people who don't even twig that it's satire.

I thought this comment was spot on: "That many of the commenters did not realize this article was satire, is a reasonable indication that satire of Sarah Palin is redundantly ridiculous."
posted by UbuRoivas at 6:15 PM on April 23, 2013 [1 favorite]


Come on, it's obvious satire. In real life, Sarah Palin would have called for an invasion of the continent of Czech.
posted by Flunkie at 6:22 PM on April 23, 2013 [6 favorites]


Remember when we used to do Irish jokes before Palin came along?
posted by de at 6:30 PM on April 23, 2013


Oh man. My mom is visiting from down South this weekend, and spending time together at the Prudential and in the Boylston Street area has always meant a lot to us. It's going to be so heartbreaking to go there. I'm looking forward to it.
posted by Countess Elena at 6:35 PM on April 23, 2013 [1 favorite]


Again, this returns to what a weapon is designed to do.

I have two objections to the term WMD in this context. Neither of my objections is likely to convince any legal types; the law is the law yadda yadda yadda. But both of my objections are, to me, compelling.

First, the phrase Weapon of Mass Destruction was deliberately created to convey a certain air of gravitas. Almost by definition a WMD is something that should require group participation to create, group logistics to deploy, and threaten not just a few people but a population. WMD's lay waste to populations, landscapes, cities; this is why they are special, this is why it is worth ignoring other protocols to be absolutely sure of preventing their deployment. These are understood to be not mere guns, capable of killing a few dozen people as has happened once in awhile. Our society is OK leaving weapons that can do that in the hands of civilians and leaving states to their prosecution. Weapons that kill a couple of dozen people aren't special. WMD's are special.

Airplanes as used in 9/11, the failed 9/11 truck bomb, McVeigh -- these are WMD's, although I'd put McVeigh at the very low end of the scale. A truck full of fertilizer is a little meh compared to atomic bombs and disease vectors. But yeah, 3-digit body count and flat tall building, I'll go with it.

Homemade bombs more down to Wile E. Coyote than Blofeld, not so much.

Second reason, there needs to be a justification for the Feds to get involved with personal level enforcement at all. SRSLY this is something normally delegated to the states. And the justification, with the usual summoning of the Commerce Clause, is that the crime is of such a vast and diffuse nature that it inevitably will cross state lines.

When it was formed ca. 1910 the FBI involved itself mainly with things like banking and antitrust violations. Its role expanded vastly thanks to the gangsterism of the Prohibition era, but still justified by the widespread interstate nature of the criminal conspiracies. Kidnapping added with a bit of a stretch thanks to Lindbergh. Then more and more things get dumped in, on the argument that they COULD if you squint REALLY HARD have an interstate effect, and so, FEDS.

THIS IS NOT AN INTERSTATE CRIME, FULL STOP. If I shoot someone from Maine it's not an interstate crime. There was no interstate conspiracy. The Feds only claim jurisdiction here because BOOGA-WOOGA WMD DEFINITION SEE. And they are falling all over themselves to claim that jurisdiction because DEATH PENALTY, WOOT!!!! Stupid Massholes don't have one, but FBI to the rescue!

So America prepares to needle another evildoer, except it's not so much Blofeld as Wile E. Coyote. I don't have a big problem with that happening, really. But I have a problem with debasing the language of vast and terrible things onto cartoon fuckups. I have a problem with the Federal Government claiming that if I breathe a molecule of air that might have once been in Massachussetts it's a Federal matter. And I suspect at least a few people have a problem with the Feds steamrolling the overall intent of the Commonwealth of Massachussetts in not having a death penalty to say, becasue BOOGA-WOOGA 4-oz-up WMD's it's OK for the Feds to step in and execute one of their citizens even though the state itself decided it was uncool to do that.
posted by localroger at 6:38 PM on April 23, 2013 [6 favorites]


Some federal death penalty statistics from an abolitionist source. About half of the defendants facing the death penalty plea out. Out of the cases taken to trial, the death penalty is rejected by juries about 2/3rds of the time. Half of all federal death penalty cases come from nine districts. Defendants are disproportionately minorities, and in a fair number of cases, the decision to prosecute at a federal level changed the venue from a majority-black juror pool to a majority-white juror pool. T

Which leads to one of the major abolitionist arguments against the death penalty. It's cruel and unusual to allow a death sentence on the order of 1/1,000 cases, especially when the major factors behind that sentence appear to be racism, choice of venue, and legal incompetence. Even if Tsarnaev is undeniably guilty, the system for choosing which cases of multiple homicide get an effective life sentence vs. lethal injection appears to be both arbitrary and biased.
posted by CBrachyrhynchos at 6:52 PM on April 23, 2013 [3 favorites]


THIS IS NOT AN INTERSTATE CRIME, FULL STOP.

No, but it is a federal crime.
posted by Sys Rq at 6:58 PM on April 23, 2013 [5 favorites]


via The Guardian: Boston bombing raises concerns about communication failures

Philip Mudd, who was the top intelligence adviser to the FBI leading up to 2011, said: “We are going to see this again, and we are going to ask ourselves: how did we fail? But before you ask that question, how are you going to boil the 10,000 people you interview down to that one case, and how are you going to deal with the 500 false positives?”

Mudd, who also served as deputy director of the CIA’s counter-terrorism centre, said the Boston bombings might provoke a reassessment of the dangers of homegrown radicals in the US. “A few years ago we very proudly said we didn’t have a problem in the US with radicalised Muslims – that that was a European problem, a British problem.”


Please, please, please don't be related to Dr. Samuel Mudd.
posted by wensink at 7:01 PM on April 23, 2013 [1 favorite]


Speaking of venue changes, as murfed13 did so well above, it's worth noting that McVeigh's trial was moved to Denver, but Ramzi Yousef was tried right in downtown New York City. The US did intend to try Khalid Sheikh Mohammed in New York, but there were objections raised, and the whole shebang is on hold, with the case back in the hands of a military commission. So it's an open question whether Boston will be the venue and may depend more on the defense team's strategy than the government's.
posted by dhartung at 7:06 PM on April 23, 2013


Another item for the "rank amateurs" file: Tsarnaev Brothers Killed MIT Officer Because They Needed a Gun
posted by FelliniBlank at 7:09 PM on April 23, 2013 [2 favorites]


localroger, you've repeated your objection the use of the term "weapon of mass destruction" in the law almost 20 times in this thread. We get it already.

You seem pretty angry that despite repeating your point over and over again, we haven't still changed the law yet. The problem isn't that we haven't understood you. The problem is that we're not Congress, and we can't actually do that.
posted by nangar at 7:15 PM on April 23, 2013 [3 favorites]


Words that contain the letters "IRA:"

Conspiracy
Miranda
Miracle
Iraq
Dr. Zira


After an exhaustive search, I've determined that most of the discussion of the well-known, erstwhile Boston/IRA connection was in the first marathon thread. Sorry. Having followed both I felt like we had plowed that ground a few times already.

But I have a problem with debasing the language of vast and terrible things onto cartoon fuckups.

You're sort of arguing that it was a hyperbolic, bullshit term to start with, so it's not clear why this new application of the term in what you believe is a hyperbolic, bullshit way is such a disappointing turn of events.
posted by Miko at 7:16 PM on April 23, 2013


THIS IS NOT AN INTERSTATE CRIME, FULL STOP.

No, but it is a federal crime.


The two statements are mutually exclusive. So if it is a Federal crime how is that justified by it being an interstate crime, in some different sense than me walking up to a tourist in the New Orleans French Quarter who happens to be from Maine, and shooting them, which everyone agrees wouldn't be either an interstate or Federal crime?
posted by localroger at 7:17 PM on April 23, 2013


Bloomberg Says Interpretation of Constitution Will ‘Have to Change’ After Boston Bombing

In the wake of the Boston Marathon bombings, Mayor Michael Bloomberg said Monday the country’s interpretation of the Constitution will “have to change” to allow for greater security to stave off future attacks.

> "But the big point here is that we most emphatically do not need to reinterpret the Constitution to be safe. If we do, then we’ve lost the war on terror."
posted by nickyskye at 7:20 PM on April 23, 2013 [1 favorite]


You're sort of arguing that it was a hyperbolic, bullshit term to start with

Well it was, which is why I am so unthrilled with it being extended to more and more mundane things, like fuckup losers who can't even build a bomb right and who instead of conducting a proper shootout are, in full on Wile E. Coyote fashion, throwing said crude bombs out of their vehicle as a pursuit defense, which is something so stupidly wasteful and unlikely to work I'm not sure Wile E. Coyote was ever dumb enough to try.
posted by localroger at 7:20 PM on April 23, 2013


Tamerlan's ex-brother in law: "He was angry that the world pictures Islam as a violent religion.”
posted by BobbyVan at 7:23 PM on April 23, 2013 [3 favorites]


"He was angry that the world pictures Islam as a violent religion."

Hmmm, interesting. The pieces are finally all coming together. These two guys were simply dumb as shit.
posted by (Arsenio) Hall and (Warren) Oates at 7:25 PM on April 23, 2013 [22 favorites]


You seem pretty angry that despite repeating your point over and over again, we haven't still changed the law yet.

I would say I am upset, not so much angry, that people think this is worth arguing in particular having brought it up forty comments after I'd left the topic for dead on at least two occasions. If you bring it back up I will argue it again because I think it is a fucking embarrassment to me as an American and as human being that I have to share my country and planet with people who think a pipe bomb should reasonably be described with the same deliberately hyperbolic language that was created and meant to be reserved for things like atomic bombs.
posted by localroger at 7:25 PM on April 23, 2013 [1 favorite]


Well it was, which is why I am so unthrilled with it being extended to more and more mundane things

Yeah, that just doesn't make much sense to me. If it's bullshit, it was always bullshit and still is. It's sort of funny that you didn't accept the first definition, but now you want to apply and defend it.
posted by Miko at 7:26 PM on April 23, 2013


The pieces are finally all coming together. These two guys were simply dumb as shit.

THIS is their real crime. Figure out how to apply the death penalty to THAT and we'll all be safe.
posted by localroger at 7:27 PM on April 23, 2013 [1 favorite]


THIS IS NOT AN INTERSTATE CRIME, FULL STOP.

Would it comfort you to know that he could have easily been charged with a variety of other federal crimes instead? You might find this interesting.

localroger, there is a conversation to be had about the federalization of state crime, but there is no debate that, as the law stands today, both the feds and the state have jurisdiction over this one.
posted by murfed13 at 7:27 PM on April 23, 2013 [2 favorites]


Still gonna have to go with their crime being blowing up bombs and killing people.
posted by (Arsenio) Hall and (Warren) Oates at 7:28 PM on April 23, 2013 [7 favorites]


Russia contacted FBI 'multiple' times on concerns about alleged Boston Marathon bomber

Russian authorities alerted the FBI not once but "multiple" times over their concerns about Tamerlan Tsarnaev -- including a second time nearly a year after he was first interviewed by FBI agents in Boston -- raising new questions about whether the FBI should have focused more attention on the suspected Boston Marathon bomber, according to US senators briefed on the probe Tuesday.
posted by nickyskye at 7:29 PM on April 23, 2013 [1 favorite]


murfed13, that link kinda clinches it, yeah.
posted by Miko at 7:29 PM on April 23, 2013


*sigh* Yeah merfed13 there is no doubt that as the existing statutes are this is both a Federal crime and a *cough* Federal bullshit theory WMD. This is not a conversation I really care about so much as the debasement of the language of vast terrible things so later.
posted by localroger at 7:31 PM on April 23, 2013


dhartung: "So it's an open question whether Boston will be the venue and may depend more on the defense team's strategy than the government's."

Yes. Change of venue is entirely in the hands of the defendant, because defendant under Art. III Sec. 2 of the US Constitution to trial in the state where the crimes were committed. Fed R. Crim. Pro Rule 18 requires the government to prosecute the case in the district the offense is committed (this matters in states other than Massachusetts with more than one district).
Rule 21 is the applicable provision which speaks to transfer of the proceeding for trial upon defendant's motion.
posted by Dr. Zira at 7:31 PM on April 23, 2013


Hmmm, interesting. The pieces are finally all coming together. These two guys were simply dumb as shit.

I'm increasingly interested in the idea that Tamerlan was suffering from CTE. The sudden personality changes, the outbursts in his mosque and in local stores -- these don't seem like the actions of a sleeper agent, but of someone with impulse control problems. Even if he had it, CTE could not be entirely responsible, but perhaps it was enough to turn a merely unpleasant man into a murderer.
posted by Countess Elena at 7:32 PM on April 23, 2013 [4 favorites]


This is not a conversation I really care about so much as the debasement of the language of vast terrible things so later.

Frankly, I think it's more debasing of the language to call these crimes "mundane", or to suppose there is a such thing as a "proper shootout" with the police, or that we really need a breakdown of injuries that didn't require "amputations" to determine how much attention we ought to pay to this act of terrorism.
posted by BobbyVan at 7:38 PM on April 23, 2013 [2 favorites]


Mod note: Can we let the WMD-or-not thing, and the questions about localroger's views on this, drop please? It's been pretty thoroughly explored already.
posted by LobsterMitten (staff) at 7:40 PM on April 23, 2013 [7 favorites]


Per the City of Boston, Boylston will NOT be open tomorrow, unfortunately.
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 7:51 PM on April 23, 2013


I'm increasingly interested in the idea that Tamerlan was suffering from CTE.

continuing to tie ourselves in knots to avoid the obvious (that they were influenced by violent religious radical rhetoric).
posted by rr at 8:07 PM on April 23, 2013 [1 favorite]


continuing to tie ourselves in knots to avoid the obvious

There doesn't have to be One Big Reason why Tamerlan Tsarnaev went off the rails.
posted by Coatlicue at 8:11 PM on April 23, 2013 [6 favorites]


Ken White over at Popehat says that Tsarnaev may be charged with additional crimes. The complaint is written to demonstrate probable cause that Tsarnaev has committed a violent crime and should be held in custody. The actual indictment will come from a grand jury, and federal prosecutors have a few weeks to look at the evidence and determine which felonies to present to the grand jury.

That is unless he waves his right to a grand jury by entering a plea agreement.
posted by CBrachyrhynchos at 8:13 PM on April 23, 2013 [1 favorite]


Mod note: A few comments deleted; if you need to reply to previous mod note, please use the contact form, thanks.
posted by LobsterMitten (staff) at 8:14 PM on April 23, 2013


Per the City of Boston, Boylston will NOT be open tomorrow, unfortunately.

Pooooooo. :( It did kinda seem too good to be true what with businesses only being let back in today.

At least it'll be a nice day for the extra half hour it'll take me to get to Newbury St. *sigh* Walking past the barricades is gonna be rough.
posted by sonika at 8:16 PM on April 23, 2013


@City of Boston @NotifyBoston
We apologize for any confusion, but earlier updates about Boylston-area reopening were incorrect. We'll have more news soon.


All right, who let Menino make the announcement? We've got rules against that, people!
posted by benito.strauss at 8:20 PM on April 23, 2013


I guess it's good to know why they shot Officer Collier, but is also disheartening to think of it as just another hairbrained scheme that went wrong. Fools. What a waste of lives.
posted by feste at 8:20 PM on April 23, 2013 [2 favorites]


And it's good that through their ineptitude, the carjacking victim was able to get away.
posted by feste at 8:21 PM on April 23, 2013


Do the lawyers among us think that the Feds will allow him to plead guilty to avoid the death penalty? Are you surprised that Colorado authorities rejected James Holmes attempt for a plea deal?
posted by feste at 8:26 PM on April 23, 2013


continuing to tie ourselves in knots to avoid the obvious (that they were influenced by violent religious radical rhetoric).

Why stop there. Simplify it some more.

Tamerlan was an angry man, ripe for self-made, self-radicalised, jihadism, a one man show with charisma enough to recruit a younger brother. Together they'd take the world.

Truth be known even the Chechan training camps rejected him. He comes across as a born-again numb-skull. (Punch drunk, highly likely.)

Tamerlan came to the attention of both Russian and US governments ... he was never going to be a member of any jihad cell, (they'd want him asleep).
posted by de at 8:29 PM on April 23, 2013 [1 favorite]


Fools. What a waste of lives.

Well it's so much more fulfilling when lives are wasted in furtherance of a plot; at least that's what we learn from movies.

These were losers with few resources who, considering where they were coming from, upped their game by placing their half-assed bombs at the Marathon finish line but had no idea how swiftly they'd be identified and caught and had no plan B in that case.
posted by localroger at 8:35 PM on April 23, 2013 [2 favorites]


Truth be known even the Chechan training camps rejected him.

There's no evidence he ever applied to any, let alone that he was rejected. Do the Chechen separatists even have anything like like "training camps"?
posted by nangar at 8:41 PM on April 23, 2013


These were losers with few resources who, considering where they were coming from, upped their game by placing their half-assed bombs at the Marathon finish line but had no idea how swiftly they'd be identified and caught and had no plan B in that case.

The more facts come to light, the more they remind me of the British dark comedy, Four Lions.
posted by UbuRoivas at 8:48 PM on April 23, 2013 [3 favorites]


There's no evidence he ever applied to any

The way this guy left evidence all over Boston you'd think if he were a member of anything larger he'd have framed attendance certificates on his wall at home.
posted by de at 8:51 PM on April 23, 2013 [9 favorites]


The most frightening thing at this point is to contemplate what will happen when smart people decide to do something similar, if this is how much havoc a couple of (apparent) dumbfucks can wreak. They really didn't think they were going to get caught, did they?
posted by Bookhouse at 9:29 PM on April 23, 2013 [5 favorites]


You few folk who keep going on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on about the fucking IRA and the fucking WMDs are making the baby jesus cry.

So stop it. Don't make the baby cry. Just please fucking please stop it.
posted by five fresh fish at 11:50 PM on April 23, 2013 [8 favorites]


Thank you five fresh fish. I second your motion. I find this thread fascinating, but the derails about the civil rights and the IRA and now the definition of a WMD is just... AAARGH JUST STOP PLEASE STOP FOR THE LOVE OF FUCKING GOD!
posted by suburbanbeatnik at 11:54 PM on April 23, 2013 [2 favorites]




Man, for some reason, that birthday present image has hit me harder and made me angrier and sadder than anything I have seen yet.

Some people just want to make others happy and give them presents, and be friends. Other people want to rip the limbs off those people and make them suffer. And that second group of people feels quite free to obtain weapons and go out and do just that, make everyone suffer so that they can get off on feeling like video game heroes.

And we are not an inch closer to identifying and stopping those people before they act out. We focus on things like religion and national origin and membership in certain groups. Great, that's not at all the common thread that unites all of these perpetrators, and nobody wants to admit it.
posted by cairdeas at 12:41 AM on April 24, 2013 [13 favorites]


A few thoughts came up talking about the Tsarnaev brothers last night with a friend. The first one was about money. The older brother may have depended on the younger brother financially in paying for this act of terrorism, the gun, the bomb materials etc. I wondered if pot dealing was how they financed what they did? In all the investigating done about them, it doesn't seem that either of the brothers had real jobs or any history of work, except part time. How did they afford the Mercedes that Tamerlan drove, the trip abroad, his snazzy clothes, boxing gear, the gyms they went to, their computers and the pot that Dzhokhar smoked?

Tamerlan was a stay at home dad. This article had a few details. Tamerlan was supported by his wife, who paid for herself, their 3 year old daughter and for Tamerlan.

From an article with some intriguing details: It doesn't sound like their mother was a clear thinking influence on her sons' lives. She fairly recently stole designer clothes from Lord & Taylor's as well as skipped bail. Interesting that it was a Lord & Taylor camera, albeit in a different location, that took the video that was first used to identify the suspects.

She thought 9-11 was purposefully created by the American government to make America hate Muslims. “‘It’s real,’ she said, ‘My son knows all about it. You can read on the internet.’”

In June, Tsarnaeva was accused of trying to steal seven designer dresses, valued at $1,600, from a Lord & Taylor department store in suburban Natick. She skipped bail and, in October, a court issued a warrant for her arrest.

Since both brothers were internet savvy, knew about surveillance cameras, it seemed odd that they did not try to hide their identities during the planting of the bombs. Perhaps they both intended the terrorist act they committed to be suicidal?

Another thought came up was that if Tamerlan had been wearing a suicide vest or suicide device strapped to his chest when he was shot, why was there not sign of any explosion on his body in the death photo of him? (Warning: Here is the death photo and an article about Tamerlan arriving alive but unconscious at the hospital.)
posted by nickyskye at 1:56 AM on April 24, 2013


From an article with some intriguing details: It doesn't sound like their mother was a clear thinking influence on her sons' lives

No. What's missing from this story is a brutish strict husband/father. It has all the hallmarks. Not likely to hear about it if it is the case. They'd keep mum.
posted by de at 2:38 AM on April 24, 2013 [1 favorite]


I don't know, de. In so many of these stories, the boys are spoiled, coddled, and privileged by their parents, fathers included. They have a big old sense of entitlement to power, attention and glory. I don't know. There could have been a brutish father, maybe we'll find out.
posted by cairdeas at 2:55 AM on April 24, 2013 [1 favorite]


Although, for all that everyone thinks Ruslan is so awesome, just listening to his yelling for that minute long press conference and watching his neck vein bulge raised my stress level quite a bit. I could not imagine living with someone who was that kind of yeller. It does make me wonder if his brother is the same way.
posted by cairdeas at 3:06 AM on April 24, 2013 [2 favorites]


if Tamerlan had been wearing a suicide vest or suicide device strapped to his chest when he was shot

The reports that I read only said that he was found with a trigger device. Perhaps it was the trigger for the pressure cooker bomb that was thrown out of the car during the chase (and successfully detonated as far as I know, although to no effect.) I don't know why it would still be on his person if that were the case; perhaps he clipped it to a belt loop with a carabiner so that he could get to it quickly with one hand.

Also, I can't remember if it was this thread or the last one, but there was convincing evidence that the gash in his torso in that picture was the result of an emergency thoracotomy.
posted by Rhomboid at 3:11 AM on April 24, 2013 [2 favorites]


Since both brothers were internet savvy, knew about surveillance cameras, it seemed odd that they did not try to hide their identities during the planting of the bombs. Perhaps they both intended the terrorist act they committed to be suicidal?

If the brothers were suicidal they would have stayed near the bombs they set off, instead of walking away.

Another thought came up was that if Tamerlan had been wearing a suicide vest or suicide device strapped to his chest when he was shot, why was there not sign of any explosion on his body in the death photo of him?

Because the vest, if there was one, did not go off.

Also, I can't remember if it was this thread or the last one, but there was convincing evidence that the gash in his torso in that picture was the result of an emergency thoracotomy.

Yes, that gash was a result of last ditch-not likely to work-but gotta try effort to save him.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 3:15 AM on April 24, 2013


If the brothers were suicidal they would have stayed near the bombs they set off, instead of walking away.

Nah, if they'd stayed near the bombs they would have had about a 3/282 chance of succeeding in their suicide attempt (based on fatalities vs non-fatal injuries; unharmed bystanders excluded from this analysis).

That's almost exactly a 1% chance of success.
posted by UbuRoivas at 3:33 AM on April 24, 2013 [2 favorites]


That's almost exactly a 1% chance of success.

That seems to be par for the course for these jokers.

I'm confused. If they killed Sergeant Collier to try to take his gun, did they only have one gun in the shootout?
posted by Elementary Penguin at 3:37 AM on April 24, 2013


I'm confused. If they killed Sergeant Collier to try to take his gun, did they only have one gun in the shootout?

They had a real gun and a pellet gun. Helps explain why it looks like Tamerlan did most of the brandishing and shooting.
posted by FelliniBlank at 3:55 AM on April 24, 2013 [1 favorite]


I just want to say something that is kind of a non-sequitur to what we have been talking about, but I want to say it here.

When I first got access to the internet, when I was around 11 or 12, it opened my eyes to human nature (or, I should say, the nature of some humans) in a jarring way that took a few years to come to terms with.

It's hard to convey now how shocking it was, because we are so used to what anonymous comments are like, how nasty and brutal the thoughts invariably are that they convey.

I remember reading this one comment at the time, by someone I believe was a young man. It was something like, "If women didn't have pussies, they would be shot for sport."

At the time, even though it opened my eyes to a degree, I didn't really take it fully literally. I already knew about war atrocities; I would find out about My Lai later, the Mahmudiyah atrocity would happen much later. So I thought, "Yes, there are many young men who, if they found themselves with power and weapons in a chaotic war zone, might kill me for sport."

But in my day to day life, I just thought this, "Okay, now I know. I know that there are many men out there who see me as just a hole to fuck. I know that there are many men out there who see me as having absolutely zero worth as a human being."

But I thought, in my day to day life, I would mostly only have to confront this in ways that were more wearying than anything. Street harassment. Work harassment. Or just less overt things like being condescended to at work, or in school. Being treated like I was weak, incompetent, stupid. I would have to worry about violence, but I could mostly predict and avoid it. Don't go places alone at night. Don't open the door to strangers. Don't give strangers rides, don't go to certain parties, or certain neighborhoods. Watch your drink, in the bar.

And I came to terms with this. And I have been dealing with this for a very long time. And I have felt, you know, like I could handle it well enough. It has felt like a burden at times, but not one that was so heavy that I couldn't handle it.

But I have started to feel something else, as these ultraviolent incidents keep happening, and keep happening, keep happening. The young man was being literal when he said they wanted to kill us for sport. They do want to kill us for sport. They have started to kill us for sport. They are actually starting to do it for real.

I felt like all the other things were a burden that I could handle, but I do not feel like I can handle this. I am starting to feel very, very hopeless.
posted by cairdeas at 4:06 AM on April 24, 2013 [10 favorites]


They had a real gun and a pellet gun. Helps explain why it looks like Tamerlan did most of the brandishing and shooting.

That's not quite what I've read. According to this article linked somewhere above
The weapons used by the two suspects, according to police: a pressure-cooker bomb, seven IEDs, an M4 carbine, two handguns, and a BB gun.
If they had an M4 and two handguns, then why would they need a third handgun from Collier? Something doesn't add up.
posted by Rhomboid at 4:13 AM on April 24, 2013 [1 favorite]


Rhomboid: "If they had an M4 and two handguns, then why would they need a third handgun from Collier? Something doesn't add up."

One of the handguns is Collier's, though, right? So they had one pistol and one long-gun (and a BB gun, but, whatever), and they wanted a second pistol (I'm guessing there are a lot of situations where an M4 is unwieldy), so they used their one pistol to get a second pistol. That's how I interpreted it.
posted by Bugbread at 4:16 AM on April 24, 2013


The article about Sergeant Collier said they were unable to get the gun out of his locked holster, though. Maybe they just wanted another gun. They didn't really have a plan, and more guns probably seemed like a good idea.
posted by Elementary Penguin at 4:18 AM on April 24, 2013 [1 favorite]


Nah, if they'd stayed near the bombs they would have had about a 3/282 chance of succeeding in their suicide attempt (based on fatalities vs non-fatal injuries; unharmed bystanders excluded from this analysis).

That's almost exactly a 1% chance of success.


Those odds are only known now and they could have upped them by keeping their backpacks on when the bomb exploded.

The young man was being literal when he said they wanted to kill us for sport.

Extremely doubtful. Lots of asinine comments are made on the internet which bear no resemblance to reality. For all you know, the guy could have simply been venting 'cause her girlfriend dumped him or some such.

The article about Sergeant Collier said they were unable to get the gun out of his locked holster, though.

Whaaa? Do police have special thumbprint holsters now, keyed to the specific officers prints? 'Cause these bombers are increasingly looking like idiots.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 4:21 AM on April 24, 2013 [1 favorite]


Elementary Penguin: "The article about Sergeant Collier said they were unable to get the gun out of his locked holster, though."

Ah, ok, that makes sense.
posted by Bugbread at 4:23 AM on April 24, 2013


Whaaa? Do police have special thumbprint holsters now, keyed to the specific officers prints? 'Cause these bombers are increasingly looking like idiots.

Increasingly? Is it possible to surpass 100% idiocy?

Guys decided to attack & kill a police officer, while they were supposedly on the run after the bombing, for a freaking pistol - which they couldn't even get out of its holster - when they could've bought in advance for themselves any kind of military assault weapon their little hearts desired, without any kind of background check, from any "gun show" in the country.

What part of "military assault weapons are easier to buy in the US than pot" did they fail to understand?

I'm frankly surprised they even had it together enough to secure for themselves a BB gun. Or that they didn't somehow kill themselves with the BB gun by slipping on a banana peel.
posted by UbuRoivas at 4:42 AM on April 24, 2013 [5 favorites]




"If they are going to kill him. I don’t care. My oldest one is killed, so I don’t care. OK? I don’t care is my youngest son is going to be killed today. I want the world to hear this. And, I don’t care if I am going to get killed too. And I will say Allahu Akbar!

Oh. My. God. What in the actual fuck?!
posted by youandiandaflame at 4:55 AM on April 24, 2013 [8 favorites]


She probably sends the worst care packages.
posted by (Arsenio) Hall and (Warren) Oates at 4:55 AM on April 24, 2013 [27 favorites]


UboRoivas: I'm frankly surprised they even had it together enough to secure for themselves a BB gun. Or that they didn't somehow kill themselves with the BB gun by slipping on a banana peel.

I've heard speculation that Dzhokhar may have tried to take his own life by shooting himself in the mouth shortly before he surrendered to the police.

Can't help but wonder whether he attempted to commit suicide using the BB gun. Sounds like it would be par for the course.
posted by syzygy at 4:58 AM on April 24, 2013 [4 favorites]


So I guess its safe to say that they probably didn't have the best of home environments growing up.
posted by Blasdelb at 4:58 AM on April 24, 2013 [4 favorites]




Some good has come of this. China and the US are in unison. Russia and the US are in unison. Islamic extremist groups have sent Obama condolences along with denying any responsibility for such a tardy op (I guess).

FBI have been allowed enter Russia to interview the parents, and the mother has been screaming at media that her son is (only) guilty of being Muslim.

The Muslims won't stand for it.

Maybe this isn't the first act of terrorism on US soil since 9-11; and maybe the world really has come a long way in the last 10 years.
posted by de at 5:04 AM on April 24, 2013 [3 favorites]


“We were just shocked,” said Bill Weimer, vice president of Phantom Fireworks in Seabrook, N.H. “After our Times Square experience, we said, ‘It can’t happen twice.'" But it did.
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 5:19 AM on April 24, 2013 [1 favorite]


The weapons used by the two suspects, according to police: a pressure-cooker bomb, seven IEDs, an M4 carbine, two handguns, and a BB gun.
posted by a snickering nuthatch at 5:21 AM on April 24, 2013 [1 favorite]


Just an angry dysfunctional man.
posted by de at 6:07 AM on April 24, 2013 [2 favorites]


Tamerlan's ex-brother in law: "He was angry that the world pictures Islam as a violent religion.”

Dude, I don't think "PR campaign" means what you think it means.
posted by FelliniBlank at 6:10 AM on April 24, 2013 [3 favorites]


Does anyone know if there were actually explosives found on Memorial Drive? I remember this being reported at the time but I can't confirm it now.
posted by bobobox at 6:13 AM on April 24, 2013


continuing to tie ourselves in knots to avoid the obvious (that they were influenced by violent religious radical rhetoric).

Is someone in this thread disputing that?
posted by FelliniBlank at 6:19 AM on April 24, 2013


What part of "military assault weapons are easier to buy in the US than pot" did they fail to understand?
Been doing Bananna bong hits again?
Do you have some stats with that claim.
posted by clavdivs at 6:50 AM on April 24, 2013


Dude, you can get guns for cash without a background check or any paperwork at all - perfectly legally - at any gun show.

Assuming you survive attending it, however.
posted by Pogo_Fuzzybutt at 6:54 AM on April 24, 2013


The reason for this time limitation is simple: civil rights. The government cannot keep an open file on you forever, looking into everything you do. This is a feature, not a bug.

Why the FBI Didn't Catch Tamerlan Tsarnaev
posted by Horace Rumpole at 6:55 AM on April 24, 2013 [2 favorites]




"It's very, very possible" that the body could be Tripathi's, Donnelly said, adding that authorities will not know for sure until the medical examiner's office in Providence identifies the body.

Donnelly said Tripathi's family has not been notified of the body's recovery, Boston.com reported.


"We figured they could read about in the paper like everybody else." he went on to say.
posted by Horace Rumpole at 6:58 AM on April 24, 2013 [8 favorites]




Wait, Sunil Tripathi has been missing? I thought he was falsely accused, then everybody realised their mistake, and then no hard feelings....?

Please tell me he didn't die because of internet vigilante 'justice'.
posted by UbuRoivas at 7:12 AM on April 24, 2013


UbuRoivas, I can't tell if you're kidding, but he's been missing for more than a month.
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 7:14 AM on April 24, 2013 [2 favorites]


The linked article notes that Triathi has been missing since Mid-March, i.e before the bombings.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 7:14 AM on April 24, 2013


No, not joking at all. Was aware of the whole false accusation thing from Reddit, but if he's been missing for a month then most likely other factors were at play. Nothing to see here; move on please.
posted by UbuRoivas at 7:17 AM on April 24, 2013


MIT has canceled classes today to host a massive memorial service for our fallen police officer that is open only to the MIT community and to law enforcement. Surrounding streets (including where I live) are closed. From what I hear, they're expecting ~10,000 in attendance. And Biden will be here so security is off the chain!
posted by The Biggest Dreamer at 7:31 AM on April 24, 2013


James Taylor is also singing at the memorial service this morning.
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 7:35 AM on April 24, 2013


Surrounding streets (including where I live) are closed.

Aren't you worried about your civil liberties?!
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 7:35 AM on April 24, 2013 [4 favorites]


Commissioner Davis calls for cameras and drones.
posted by ChurchHatesTucker at 7:36 AM on April 24, 2013 [1 favorite]


Oh, good. The older brother was on welfare at one point, so now my Facebook relatives have something to really be outraged over.
posted by dirigibleman at 7:37 AM on April 24, 2013 [1 favorite]


I can't find it anywhere in print, but this CBS report states that Dzhokhar didn't have a gun in the boat. Which raises many questions if true.
posted by (Arsenio) Hall and (Warren) Oates at 7:38 AM on April 24, 2013 [1 favorite]


According to the Tsarnaev aunt, a Boston mosque has refused to hold Tamerlan's funeral.
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 7:38 AM on April 24, 2013 [4 favorites]


MIT has canceled classes today to host a massive memorial service for our fallen police officer that is open only to the MIT community and to law enforcement. Surrounding streets (including where I live) are closed. From what I hear, they're expecting ~10,000 in attendance. And Biden will be here so security is off the chain!

That would explain the fifteen lit-up police cars escorting a bus into Boston I saw on the Pike this morning.
posted by Elementary Penguin at 7:46 AM on April 24, 2013


^ “I would not be willing to do a funeral for him. This is a person who deliberately killed people. There is no room for him as a Muslim.”

Told you so. It comes down to this: "No more hurting people".
posted by de at 7:47 AM on April 24, 2013 [7 favorites]



According to the Tsarnaev aunt, a Boston mosque has refused to hold Tamerlan's funeral.


I couldn't be prouder of Talal Eid, and I'm glad he refused to hold services for Tamerlan. Talal Eid was our imam growing up and performed numerous religious ceremonies for everyone in my family when we were kids and lived in the Boston area. When we moved to the DC area, they regularly visited - it was always fun, relaxed, and full of laughs, with the Imam and his family staying at our house. A few years ago, he also came down and performed the religious ceremony for my brother and sister in law's wedding. I'm not religious anymore, but I have nothing but fond memories of the Eid family and the type of Islam we grew up with in the Quincy mosque.
posted by raztaj at 8:01 AM on April 24, 2013 [49 favorites]


" I wondered if pot dealing was how they financed what they did"
posted by nickskye

You would need to sell a lot of weed to but a merc, several pressure cookers, take a trip to Russia, box everyday etc. Interestingly, an article about the triple murder of Tsarnaev's best friend said there was a load of money (thousands of dollars) at the scence - surely if it was Tsarnaev, he would have taken the money. Also, sprinkling weed on corpses is wasteful - you are tossing away profit if you are a seller.
posted by marienbad at 8:17 AM on April 24, 2013


they would have be selling amazingly large amounts of weed to finance anything more than a trip to the movies. pot dealing isn't terribly lucrative. the only reason it's a gateway drug and you have to go to drug dealers to get it and they want you to buy something that has a better profit margin, like pills.
posted by nadawi at 8:36 AM on April 24, 2013




'Slip Away is slipping away. But I say it did its job. It held a bad guy and is going away like a Viking ship,' Mr Henneberry said to WCVB.
Despite official accounts that he saw blood on the outside of the boat, Henneberry said that is not true.

"No indication of anything. I know people say I saw blood on the boat, 'He saw blood on the boat.' Not true," he said.

"I said OK, everything is fine. There are no visible signs of blood outside the boat. I went inside," he said.

But something was nagging at him and his obsession with his boat soon had him taking another walk into the yard. This time, he put a ladder up to the side of the boat to take a closer look.

"I got three steps up the ladder and rolled the shrink wrap. I didn't expect to see anything, but I saw blood on the floor of the boat. A good amount of blood," he said.

"And I said 'Wow, did I cut myself last time?' I thought. I was in the boat a couple of weeks ago. Then I just look over there, and there is more blood," he said.

Then he saw Tsarnaev.
Huh. A couple things:

1. Everything reported in the news about how he discovered Tsarnaev -- blood on the outside of the boat, a ladder where there was no ladder, never laid eyes on Tsarnaev (just a suspicion) -- was false.

2. How'd Tsarnaev get up there without a ladder?
posted by Sys Rq at 8:51 AM on April 24, 2013 [3 favorites]


2. How'd Tsarnaev get up there without a ladder?

And without leaving blood, despite two(?) bullet wounds.
posted by ChurchHatesTucker at 9:00 AM on April 24, 2013 [1 favorite]


2. How'd Tsarnaev get up there without a ladder?

Quite possibly the same way I was getting over fences and walls taking the back way home from school through an abandoned rail yard, with a fair bit of sweating and cursing.
posted by CBrachyrhynchos at 9:02 AM on April 24, 2013




He first checked the wrap because it was looser than usual. Eyeballed it w/o ladder. Went back again with ladder, saw blood on the inside and "body" curled up near engine block. Did not see the kid's face. Called police.

The new twist that's getting reported now is that the boy did not have a gun in the boat. What?

Also, re gun from Collier. Even if they could not get his sidearm loose from the 3-pt holster, he might have had a long gun in the trunk of his police car.
posted by maggieb at 9:07 AM on April 24, 2013


How'd Tsarnaev get up there without a ladder?

The space between the boat and picket fence would've provided some nice cover for climbing, cursing and sweating.
posted by wensink at 9:08 AM on April 24, 2013 [2 favorites]


Republican state legislator Stella Tremblay from NH says, "The Boston Marathon was a Black Ops "terrorist" attack" on Glenn Beck's facebook page. Here's the post. (Certainly be sure to read the comments and watch Tremblay defend herself. It's a sight to behold, that brand of crazy in action.)
posted by youandiandaflame at 9:15 AM on April 24, 2013 [1 favorite]


Certainly be sure to read the comments

I'm gonna pass on that for mental health reasons.
posted by diogenes at 9:18 AM on April 24, 2013


Why is it "that" crazy people use so many "quotation" marks, "and" in such random places?
posted by (Arsenio) Hall and (Warren) Oates at 9:21 AM on April 24, 2013 [2 favorites]


I'm gonna pass on that for mental health reasons.

They actually helped my mental health some.

I peeked. I was ready to be spammed with crazy but the majority are sane people with various versions of "wtf? What is wrong with you. How did you get elected?" comments. It's quite amusing.
posted by Jalliah at 9:39 AM on April 24, 2013 [2 favorites]


Certainly be sure to read the comments and watch Tremblay defend herself.

In the interest of letting the world know what New Hampshire State Legislator Stella Tremblay (Rockingham District 04) said, here's her response:
Just as you said would happen. Top Down, Bottom UP. The Boston Marathon was a Black Ops "terrorist" attack. One suspect killed, the other one will be too before they even have a chance to speak. Drones and now "terrorist" attacks by our own Government. Sad day, but a "wake up" to all of us. First there was a "suspect" then there wasnt. Infowars broke the story and they knew they had been "found out".
http://youtu.be/axQtAFtmtVA

....

Holy COW!!! Because someone asks questions one is viciously attacked? What happened to discussion? Truly was it told: They hear with their ears, but are deaf, and they see with their eyes but they are blind. How can it be "delusional" for asking questions? There WERE military with black back packs on the last mile of the marathon. Some had detonators...is it not coincidental that they were stating there was a "drill" and not to be alarmed? Why are they seen quickly moving away from the area of the bomb just a minute before it went off? Why did Reporter King (a seasoned reporter with credible sources) announce that there was a "suspect in custody" and then hours later had to rescind the statement. Talk about credibility being shot! Why is it wrong to ask questions and demand answers? Our friends, neighbours, brothers and sisters were maimed and killed by terrorists carrying out "jihad". They were innocent victims going about doing their daily routines. This is NOT right! We need to face facts and get answers. If you think I am delusional to ask these questions, so be it. If honest answers were given...I will be satisfied. Bengazi still has not had an investigation. When do we get answers to those questions?
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 9:44 AM on April 24, 2013 [1 favorite]


The use of scare quotes is even worse than I imagined. Some of them I get, but why on earth are "wake up" in and "found out" in quotes?
posted by diogenes at 9:50 AM on April 24, 2013 [2 favorites]


Benghazi!

Anyway I thought it had been established that the whole thing was a false flag operation by InfoWars where InfoWars got the brothers to do the bombing so that InfoWars could get into all the press conferences that day and accuse the government of a false flag operation in order to make InfoWars look bad.

Now I have that Pontypool disease. Infowars.
posted by Elementary Penguin at 9:50 AM on April 24, 2013 [6 favorites]


The space between the boat and picket fence would've provided some nice cover for climbing, cursing and sweating.

Slightly off-topic, but is that a giant stuffed Stewie in the yard next door? For some reason, it really amuses me that Stewie was hanging out there during the manhunt.
posted by mudpuppie at 10:03 AM on April 24, 2013 [5 favorites]


Man, that was a beautiful boat.
posted by rollbiz at 10:09 AM on April 24, 2013


why on earth are "wake up" in and "found out" in quotes?


Incompetence.
 
posted by Herodios at 10:11 AM on April 24, 2013


Why did Reporter King

And it is, it is, a glorious thing to be a Reporter King!

posted by Horace Rumpole at 10:17 AM on April 24, 2013 [6 favorites]


"I" don't know, ("Arsenio") Hall and "("Warren) "Oat"s, "but" it "is" what "it" is.
posted by hoople at 10:17 AM on April 24, 2013


I am Reporter King! Bring me your finest meats and cheeses!
posted by diogenes at 10:22 AM on April 24, 2013 [1 favorite]


If honest answers were given...I will be satisfied.

This I suspect is the crux of the matter. There is no such thing, in her world, as an honest answer. If they, whomever they are, spoke honestly, why would she believe them ? She wouldn't it.

She's not on a search for the truth in whatever form it may take. She's on a search for validation.
posted by Pogo_Fuzzybutt at 10:24 AM on April 24, 2013 [3 favorites]


How is reporter kinged? How news get bloobered?
posted by hoople at 10:24 AM on April 24, 2013 [6 favorites]


Republican state legislator Stella Tremblay from NH says, "The Boston Marathon was a Black Ops "terrorist" attack" on Glenn Beck's facebook page.

This is the kind of thing that happens when you make being a state legislator one of the most ass-tastic jobs in the physical universe *and* need to scrape the barrel hard enough to get 400 people in there.
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 10:26 AM on April 24, 2013 [3 favorites]


Can one even declare oneself a Reporter King without demanding bottles of booze? I think not!

Bring me your Ardbegs! Your High Wests! Your Wild Turkey 101s!
posted by rtha at 10:29 AM on April 24, 2013 [1 favorite]


NH has 400 legislators? What is that, every tenth person?
posted by ChurchHatesTucker at 10:32 AM on April 24, 2013 [8 favorites]


How can it be "delusional" for asking questions?

Oooh, I got this one! Because saying things like "One suspect killed, the other one will be too before they even have a chance to speak" and "Drones and now 'terrorist' attacks by our own Government" aren't questions, they're assertions—assertions that take a fact, and then blend it with completely speculative and incendiary fiction.

People aren't so much mad at you for being delusional as they are for your being disgusting. You're taking a recent tragic event in which people were hurt and killed and using it to create fan fiction for your own excitement and political advancement. And then you're asserting that divisive fan fiction as fact.

That's kind of the problem right there.
posted by evidenceofabsence at 10:33 AM on April 24, 2013 [11 favorites]


NH has 400 legislators? What is that, every tenth person?

424 when you include the New Hampshire Senate:
With 424 members, the General Court is the largest state legislature in the United States and the fourth-largest English-speaking legislative body in the world, behind the Parliament of the United Kingdom, the Parliament of India, and the United States Congress.[1]
That's one legislator for every 3114.9 residents (July 2012 Census population: 1,320,718).
posted by Jahaza at 10:36 AM on April 24, 2013


If the same level of representation were present in Congress, the U.S. House of Representatives would have approximately 99,000 members, according to current population estimates.

So much for small government.
posted by ChurchHatesTucker at 10:38 AM on April 24, 2013 [5 favorites]


So much for small government.

This is, IMHO, one of the more overlooked failures of our system as presently-constituted. The great Bostonian Charles Pierce has a weekly series called "This Week in the Laboratories of Democracy", in which he makes fun of just a few of the weird, wild, and wacky things being debated and passed in the various state houses throughout the many states, and these days, he's never hurting for material. (I do hope Ms. Tremblay's post makes it into the his next post, because that's some grade A stuff right there.)

The problem we have is, when you try to drown the federal government in a bathtub, it's not like all of those functions of government just go away, so the states have to pick up at least some of that slack. When you have massive state houses full of people who, for all their faults, don't really get paid very much (as the wikipedia article points out, $100 a year plus a per-diem for members of New Hampshire's "citizen's legislature") you have a recipe for dumb decisions made by people who are either too busy with their day jobs to inform themselves, or just not the best and brightest because, even in states with full-time legislators, the pay is kind of crappy compared to what qualified people can get in the private sector.

Here in Pennsylvania, the GOP-controlled legislatures are currently debating a plan to put many of their future selves out of work, and I give them a lot of credit for putting their money where there mouth is on the issue (assuming it doesn't get watered down, and actually gets signed into law.) That's the kind of small government that this nany-state liberal can believe in.
posted by tonycpsu at 10:55 AM on April 24, 2013 [1 favorite]


Or you could do what Texas does, and have the Lege meet for less than half a year every other year, so the legislators can have jobs for most of the time. (They tend to be lawyers, I think)

No, wait, never do what Texas does.
posted by restless_nomad at 11:06 AM on April 24, 2013 [13 favorites]


Great job, Twitter.
posted by (Arsenio) Hall and (Warren) Oates at 11:06 AM on April 24, 2013


The new twist that's getting reported now is that the boy did not have a gun in the boat.

If this is true, where did press stories that the throat injury was self-inflicted come from? Do we even have official confirmation that it was a gun shot wound?
posted by wensink at 11:08 AM on April 24, 2013 [2 favorites]


Boston Bombing Suspects Were Headed to NYC to "Party," Police Say

But they decided to shoot a cop in the head and carjack someone on their way out?
posted by benbenson at 11:20 AM on April 24, 2013


Boston Bombing Suspects Were Headed to NYC to "Party," Police Say

But they decided to shoot a cop in the head and carjack someone on their way out?


There have been allegations made that the bombers did not plan their post-attack activities very well.

Which is to say, they literally made no plans, like even having some cash on hand to leave town.
posted by GuyZero at 11:27 AM on April 24, 2013 [2 favorites]


If this is true, where did press stories that the throat injury was self-inflicted come from?

Just speculation, I think. It's never been reported as confirmed.
posted by nangar at 11:29 AM on April 24, 2013


If this is true, where did press stories that the throat injury was self-inflicted come from?

It was confirmed on 60 Minutes that the entry point for the wound was his mouth. It could have been a "lucky" shot, I suppose.
posted by ChurchHatesTucker at 11:41 AM on April 24, 2013


It was confirmed on 60 Minutes that the entry point for the wound was his mouth.

I'd prefer to say "it was stated" as opposed to "confirmed". Minor pedantic note, but an important one since there's still a lot of missing details and erroneous information still floating around.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 11:44 AM on April 24, 2013 [1 favorite]


It was "stated" by Boston's Police Commissioner.
posted by ChurchHatesTucker at 12:03 PM on April 24, 2013


Boylston St is PACKED today. I was able to run my errands, but couldn't walk around with the stroller enough to get more than a few pictures. I was able to capture the shortness of Wolf Blitzer as he stood *directly* in front of the second explosion site and (presumably) asked people about their feelings.

And oh, there were feelings. No one was really stopping at the site except to snap a quick photo - there's a memorial at Copley Sq - but there were plenty of eyes being wiped as people walked by.

Also plenty of cops, but they were very relaxed.
posted by sonika at 12:14 PM on April 24, 2013 [8 favorites]


ChurchHatesTucker: "And without leaving blood, despite two(?) bullet wounds."

I don't think there's any indication that he did it without leaving blood, just that the boat owner didn't see (notice) any blood until he looked inside the boat.

Also, alternatively, he could have climbed up the boat from the other side.
posted by Bugbread at 12:17 PM on April 24, 2013


It was "stated" by Boston's Police Commissioner.

Who made a point of not characterizing it a suicide attempt. Other authorities have done the same, which is certainly curious.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 12:19 PM on April 24, 2013


Shortly after 9/11, when there was compulsive flag flying and a sort of gung ho rah rah USA thing set in I felt, because I was a local community tenants' rights activist who had gone to protests, that I needed to protect myself by putting up a small American flag on my apartment front door. I have personally witnessed ugly - and ignorant - police behavior of all kinds. I just didn't feel safe and thought the camouflage, for want of a better word, of putting an American flag up on my front door was wise during the Bush regime. It was great to take it down years later because it represented to me feeling fearful of the hate after 9/11.

Initially, I was grateful for police action during 9/11 but then the events of that day seemed to give permission to various corrupt politicians for a lot of ugly things for which 9/11 terrorism was used as an excuse.

I have NOT felt safe in NYC since then in ways I felt before and it's not because of the terrorists. It's because of the subtly increasing police state I experience here on a gradual basis and what I see on the web, like cops all over the USA tasering completely harmless people, getting away with plug ugly brutality, tasering a naked guy stoned at a festival, disabled people or a person who simply talks back to the officer.

Hearing what Bloomberg said last night, using the events in Boston, as a reason to reinterpret the US Constitution, it reminded me a lot of the Patriot Act after 9/11. Article about what he said and some great comments in the comments section.

People in Boston may not have felt what it feels like to have the kind of for-reasons-of-national-security-police control over the city the way NYC has had since 9/11 that has become increasingly Orwellian, but if it comes your way, and, imo, it has already started, I think the Bostonians will understand those who have been interested in discussing civil rights in this thread.

I realize a number of people have said enough talking about civil rights and the Watertown lockdown, closing Boston as a city. My intention is not to nitpick over civil rights but to express why, from my own personal perspective, I think that is an important issue after what happened in Boston.
posted by nickyskye at 12:31 PM on April 24, 2013


So, absent a gun in the boat, we can presume then that the shot came from the police; with the bullet entering Dzhokhar's open mouth and exiting his throat? Amazing.
posted by wensink at 12:31 PM on April 24, 2013 [1 favorite]


The new twist that's getting reported now is that the boy alleged bomber/murderer who is still alive did not have a gun in the boat.

He is not a boy. He killed a boy.
posted by headnsouth at 12:36 PM on April 24, 2013 [6 favorites]


Here's a bunch of Islamophobic nonsense from NPR. Look! Dzhokhar followed another Muslim on Twitter! Who appears to be from the same ethnic group! What a shock. The account didn't say anything inflammatory, it just happens to be Muslim, which I guess is supposed to be enough to scare the crap out of us.
posted by desjardins at 12:48 PM on April 24, 2013




Bloomberg: Terrorism Requires A "Change" In Our Quaint View Of Constitution

Christ, what an asshole.
posted by one more dead town's last parade at 12:55 PM on April 24, 2013 [9 favorites]


Here's a bunch of Islamophobic nonsense from NPR.

I'm sure a lot of people here remember when NPR fired Juan Williams a couple of years ago for making inflammatory comments about Muslims, after which the house voted to de-fund NPR. Though it was never signed into law, I have to wonder if this kind of thing is, in a subtle way, a sign that the bullying is working.
posted by tonycpsu at 12:59 PM on April 24, 2013


I agree that the civil rights issues going forward warrant discussion. I don't see any evidence so far of Bostonians changing, even subtly, but that's partly because this attack was (Praise Dog) nothing like 9/11 and mostly because we're a stubborn lot.

Bostonians were riffing on the BPD's Occupy busts as soon as the manhunt was over. ("Great job, now you can go back to breaking up peaceful protests!" was expressed a few times that I saw.) From what I've seen the city is immensely grateful to LE, but I haven't witnessed anything close to the hero worship that occurred after 9/11.

We're going back to normal as much as we can and I feel like most of us would be damn pissed off if this meant any significant change to our city. There are more Red Sox pennants than American flags around - we're Bostonians first and this is about not letting two violent criminals fuck with that.

I'm proud that Boylston was reopened less than 48hrs after the FBI released the crime scene. I'm proud of the way the cops are hanging out and joking with passersby. I'm proud that seemingly everyone in Metro Boston is on Boylston St today. We'll see if this changes going in to the future, but right now people are talking about the lockdown talking about whether it went too far and the general vibe is one of not letting this one event change how we deal with crisis.

I'm immensely proud of how Boston has dealt with this. Our LE got Dzhokhar Tsarnaev alive without civilian casualties. Our city is reopening and moving on. Yes, it's too soon to tell what the lasting impact will be, but the immediate response isn't hero worship for LE so much as "fuck that guy" towards Tsarnaev. Very, very different vibe from NYC. We're a bunch of cantankerous grumps and we aim to stay that way. Groupthink and togetherness are only Bostonian traits when there's a game on.
posted by sonika at 1:03 PM on April 24, 2013 [5 favorites]


Also important to note that Mayor Menino has done 0% as much grandstanding on this as Bloomberg. He can think whatever he wants, but the city of Boston is not asking the rest of the country to reevaluate the Constitution.
posted by sonika at 1:06 PM on April 24, 2013 [5 favorites]


It was a foot in mouth moment for Bloomberg, but honestly I am not sure I can find anything terrible in what he actually said. I think he's positing that the need for security in a high-tech, high-gun, global/transnational US rife with psychological problems and alienation is higher than we've been used to in the past. And I'd somewhat agree with that.

I'm sympathetic to the observations of people in NYC, because as I've said I hear that from friends as well. On the other hand, I wonder why it's perceived as an unstoppable force - look out Boston, it's comin' to get you! New Yorkers have recourse at the ballot box and through countless citizens groups, protests, etc. At some level, don't New Yorkers have the policing they want? If you don't like the policing, what have you done about it?
posted by Miko at 1:07 PM on April 24, 2013


Here's a bunch of Islamophobic nonsense from NPR.

It doesn't read to me as drawing any conclusions, just that it's yet "Another Boston Bombing Mystery".

The account didn't say anything inflammatory

Well it doesn't say much of anything, but there is this:
Listen to Anwar al Awlaki's (a shaheed iA) the here after series, you will gain an unbelievable amount of knowledge.
posted by 0 at 1:09 PM on April 24, 2013


If you don't like the policing, what have you done about it?

The NYPD runs the NYPD. Not the mayor's office, not citizens, but the NYPD. No one votes the Police Chief in. No one can (effectively) tell the NYPD how to handle any police matter. Anything wrong the NYPD do that needs addressing is handled internally by the NYPD. So, no, most New Yorkers -- especially minorities -- neither have the police they want, nor have any way of getting the police they want.
posted by griphus at 1:11 PM on April 24, 2013 [6 favorites]


Speaking of Alex Jones... Salon points out that Tamerlan was a fan.

Deeper and Deeper, Mr. Jones, why don't you have a seat, right there.

Cui bono?
posted by symbioid at 1:17 PM on April 24, 2013 [2 favorites]


Bruce Schneier: The Boston Marathon Bombing: Keep Calm and Carry On
posted by mrgrimm at 1:17 PM on April 24, 2013


Deeper and Deeper, Mr. Jones, why don't you have a seat, right there.

THE CALL IS COMING FROM INSIDE THE STUDIO
posted by scody at 1:29 PM on April 24, 2013 [1 favorite]


Or cathedral.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 1:34 PM on April 24, 2013 [1 favorite]


At some level, don't New Yorkers have the policing they want? If you don't like the policing, what have you done about it?


I have my own army in the NYPD, which is the seventh biggest army in the world. I have my own State Department, much to Foggy Bottom’s annoyance.


With Visit to Goldman (Sachs), Bloomberg Says, Chin Up


P L U T O C R A C Y


(It's not just a word in the dictionary.)

posted by Skygazer at 1:36 PM on April 24, 2013 [4 favorites]


New Yorkers have recourse at the ballot box and through countless citizens groups, protests, etc.

Yeah, but when we use our power at the ballot box Bloomberg generally buys his way out of it anyway is the problem. (That third term in office? Bloomberg got it despite New Yorkers voting in a two-term limit for mayors the year before. )

And my buddy who got arrested at the Atlantic Yards groundbreaking can tell you plenty about how ineffective citizens groups are in the face of the Bloomberg empire. (That's his picture in the linked article - the charge? Beating a drum. Although, he did file a wrongful-arrest suit against the city and won earlier this year; and yet, the stadium still stands.)
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 1:41 PM on April 24, 2013 [2 favorites]


Also, for a specific answer to "If you don't like the policing, what have you done about it?" We had the whole Occupy Wall Street thing. The police beat the shit out of people and/or arrested them. There were no consequences to the NYPD -- the status quo since forever -- save for maybe a couple of public upbraidings to make the NYPD appear somewhat less obviously bloodthirsty.

(I say "we" but I will admit I did not participate. Why? I don't really have the support network to run the risk of having the shit beaten out of me and/or getting arrested, which is the price of participating in anything but a peaceful, contained, licensed and permitted protest.)
posted by griphus at 1:46 PM on April 24, 2013 [5 favorites]




The police beat the shit out of people and/or arrested them. There were no consequences to the NYPD -- the status quo since forever -- save for maybe a couple of public upbraidings to make the NYPD appear somewhat less obviously bloodthirsty.

For example.
posted by Mavri at 1:57 PM on April 24, 2013 [3 favorites]


Exactly EmpressCallypygos. Atlantic Yards was a moment of disillusionment for a lot of people who thought that people united in a cause could make a difference in NYC, and I marched with them and gave hundreds of dollars, as I'm sure you did, but at the end of the day what did it matter? Sure it cost Bloomberg's good buddy, developer Bruce Rattner alot of money via his Corporation (Forrest, I believe...) and it delayed the ground breaking, but really it was like a joke to those people, and by those people I mean Bloomberg, Rattner, the NY State Agencies, Jay-Z so on and so forth.

Boston is really a very very different town than NYC. The size and complexities of the place and sheer political and money powers are very difficult to impact with a voters movement. To me Boston has the proper connection and respect between it's govt leaders and it's middle class people. Maybe it's the solid Irish (and Italian) thing that joins the town. It's got the quality of life of a small town with the benefits and influence (and sports teams..ahem...)of a major city.

Bloomberg is an Independent because he's really a Plutocrat, through and through. Money is his dogma period and that's why he bought himself a third term he barely won, and why he had a movement for the 99%, that was against the corruption and abuses of Wall Street (which is like blasphemy to a plutocrat like Bloomberg) harassed and beat up by his "private army."

I'm not much of gun person at all, and this is pure hypothetical conjecture, but I have to wonder if Bloomberg is so anti-gun because he's exactly the sort of despot and tyrant the 2nd amendment was meant to address in the first place.
posted by Skygazer at 2:03 PM on April 24, 2013 [2 favorites]


griphus: "Also, for a specific answer to "If you don't like the policing, what have you done about it?" We had the whole Occupy Wall Street thing."

Sorry, I'm a bit confused: what is your example of doing something about policing? Are you saying that Occupy Wall Street was what was done in response to the policing, or are you saying that Occupy Wall Street ended up in police brutality, and in response to that...? What did people do about that policing?
posted by Bugbread at 2:14 PM on April 24, 2013


Protesting against police treatment of protesters became part of OWS very, very quickly (basically as soon as cops started detaining and beating people.) So, there was a very evident OWS response to police brutality as it was happening, and the police brutality aspect became as big a part -- if not in the media, then to the people actually there -- as the issues people came there to protest in the first place.
posted by griphus at 2:16 PM on April 24, 2013 [4 favorites]


What did people do about that policing?

Well it's a bit of a chicken or the egg type situation. It was the OWS movement that finally showed this city just how brutal, arrogant and tied to the whims of Bloomberg (via his Chief Ray Kelly) and Wall street itself the NYPD has become, even to go as far as having a special division of "White Shirt" high ranking officers of the NYPD (these are the ones who were especially brutal with pepper spray and such during the demonstrations) to serve as a private security service at Wall Street events (and paid big money by Wall Street directly to them for the service).


So to get back to your question, there's a general resignation / realization at this point, that nothing is going to change with the NYPD, or for the middle-class having a voice in NYC again, until Bloomberg is out of office.


That will be a good day for this city.
posted by Skygazer at 2:25 PM on April 24, 2013 [1 favorite]


People, this is a thread about Boston, the bombings and the Tsarnaev brothers. It is not a thread about Bloomberg, OWS or the NYPD. Please start your own thread if you want to discuss such things.

No, not really. I just wanted to see what it felt like to be part of the Thread Police.
posted by UbuRoivas at 2:33 PM on April 24, 2013 [12 favorites]


Phantom Fireworks. I've shopped there too! Weird observation here:
The brothers may have been planning the marathon attacks for several months. On Feb. 6, Tamerlan Tsarnaev bought fireworks at a Phantom Fireworks store in Seabrook, N.H., about an hour’s drive north of Boston, said William Weimer, the vice president of Phantom Fireworks, which is based in Youngstown, Ohio, and has 68 stores in 15 states.

“He came in and he asked the question that 90 percent of males ask when they walk into a fireworks store: ‘What’s the most powerful thing you’ve got?’ ” Mr. Weimer said in a telephone interview, adding that the store’s clerk had described the sale as “uneventful.”
Radicalized not by mosques. Not by extremist clerics. Not by hostile governments. Not by training camps. By the internet.
posted by Miko at 2:37 PM on April 24, 2013


Have any journalists dug up anything more about a possible link between the Marathon bombings and the series of unexplained explosions (previously mentioned in either this or the old thread) that were reported in a nearby town sometime back in March?
posted by Atom Eyes at 2:47 PM on April 24, 2013 [1 favorite]


griphus: "Protesting against police treatment of protesters became part of OWS very, very quickly (basically as soon as cops started detaining and beating people.)"

Ah, ok. I don't live in the US, so I've gotten most of my info on OWS from MetaFilter, and every time it comes up, people say that OWS was a protest about "the way things are" and "the 1%", but that there were no specific complaints or demands, just that "we don't like how things are going in this country". I'd always figured that, despite statements about there being no specific complaints, the fact people were mad about the 1% meant, and that it was Wall Street, meant that it was all about income inequality. Didn't know about the police brutality protests.
posted by Bugbread at 2:47 PM on April 24, 2013


OK, late to the party here, but it was not until five minutes ago that I learned, thanks to Miko's link up there, that "Make a Bomb in the Kitchen of Your Mom" was not a cortex invention.

Life is super weird.
posted by Bookhouse at 2:51 PM on April 24, 2013


Have any journalists dug up anything more about a possible link between the Marathon bombings and the series of unexplained explosions (previously mentioned in either this or the old thread) that were reported in a nearby town sometime back in March?

I read earlier today (can't find link but will keep looking) that during questioning, Dzokhar (supposedly; this is from the proverbial "unnamed source close to the investigation") said that he and his brother only planned the attacks about a week ahead of time, and didn't perform any test explosions.
posted by scody at 2:52 PM on April 24, 2013 [1 favorite]


Charlie Pierce: The Stupid (And The Deadly) Was Strong In These Ones
So, for three freaking days, and even when they're completely off everyone's radar, and when they could have gotten away completely clean, they don't blow town. Instead, the younger one hits a kegger at his college and then, when everyone on earth is looking for them, they hijack a car to try and get to Manhattan for last call? At this point, I'm surprised that they didn't hang around Watertown Square and wait for Entertainment Tonight to show up.

Look, I lived through this. I'm not minimizing what these murderous idiots did up here and, as far as I'm concerned, the surviving brother can celebrate Arbor Day in Pelican Bay for the rest of his life. But every little detail that's emerging about the brothers goes a long way toward defusing the OMIGOD MOOOOOSSSSLLIIIIIMMMMMM CALIPHATE JIHAD!!!! hysteria in certain precincts of the media.
[...]
Let them be ridiculed. Let them be tried. Let them be convicted. Let us then not hear of them again. But let them be ridiculed first. It's healthy.
posted by tonycpsu at 2:59 PM on April 24, 2013 [10 favorites]


It's doubtful they had any real training, msalt. It's remotely possible the elder brother might have gotten some training around the time of his trip to Russia, but I don't think there's any evidence these guys had any outside support.

My source was one of the officers in the Watertown shootout. His point, that they demonstrated paramilitary training in largely evading 120 bullets shot their way by police, makes sense. Tamerlan seems to have raged out at the end and just committed suicide -- perhaps wounded and created a distraction to give his little brother a shot at escaping? Jakar's driving into (and over) the scrum fits this theory.

Also, I haven't seen any evidence they had "lots of money." They were running on a stolen credit card when they displayed their stunning ignorance of networked automated teller systems.

I don't know how solid the ATM reports are. My source here was the garage mechanic who has known the brothers for years. He reported that Jakar came in on Tuesday with atypically flashy clothes for the neighborhood, wearing $900 shoes, and dropped $500 in cash to get his car out even though it still lacked a bumper. The same story mentioned that he had been living a fancier lifestyle in the months before the attack.

Perhaps they managed their money poorly and ran out? Hard to say.
posted by msalt at 3:01 PM on April 24, 2013 [1 favorite]


My source was one of the officers in the Watertown shootout. His point, that they demonstrated paramilitary training in largely evading 120 bullets shot their way by police, makes sense.

Well, it makes sense that one of the officers who emptied 120 rounds at them and mostly missed would claim that, anyway.
posted by ChurchHatesTucker at 3:03 PM on April 24, 2013 [11 favorites]


"Only Imperial Storm Troopers are so precise."

*Storm Troopers miss everything they shoot at throughout the rest of the series.*
posted by XMLicious at 3:09 PM on April 24, 2013 [6 favorites]


"My source was one of the officers in the Watertown shootout. His point, that they demonstrated paramilitary training in largely evading 120 bullets shot their way by police, makes sense."

One of which went through the wall of a house about fifteen yards to the left of the bombers. Which is more explicable given that the police were nearly a block down the street. And they were shooting with handguns. It's more of a surprise that any shots didn't miss.
posted by Ivan Fyodorovich at 3:13 PM on April 24, 2013


Dzokhar (supposedly; this is from the proverbial "unnamed source close to the investigation") said that he and his brother only planned the attacks about a week ahead of time, and didn't perform any test explosions.

That would certainly be consistent with their general I Love Lucy level of strategic thinking.
posted by FelliniBlank at 3:27 PM on April 24, 2013 [4 favorites]


The accused marathon bomber told FBI interrogators that he and his brother had decided to bomb the race about a week before the deadly attack, according to a federal law enforcement source.
posted by nickyskye at 3:37 PM on April 24, 2013


msalt: perhaps this is naivety talking here, but wouldn't just about any males of their demographic -- especially ones with, e.g., backgrounds in combat sports and terrorism -- have enough familiarity with some not-too-far-off shoot-out strategy from movies and video games?

That is, it seems like just 'general guy knowledge' these days would probably contain some basic notions of staying under cover, waiting for the enemy to reload, and so on, which under the circumstances -- dark and late, local cops who don't see much action, excitement and confusion, shooting to incapacitate and not kill, etc. -- could be enough to explain away how the brothers "dodged" those ~120 shots. Just guessing here.
posted by hoople at 3:42 PM on April 24, 2013






Have any journalists dug up anything more about a possible link between the Marathon bombings and the series of unexplained explosions (previously mentioned in either this or the old thread) that were reported in a nearby town sometime back in March?

I don't know whether I'm comforted or concerned that they weren't connected to these noises. They're very real, though we haven't heard one in a while. The police seem really blase about them.
posted by Miko at 3:59 PM on April 24, 2013


From the article homunculus linked above:

"Regrettable for the company maybe, but if we've lost our ability to come together as a country to laugh at Zooey Deschanel's misfortunte, then the terrorists have truly won."

Even more unfortuntate, is the slippage in subeditorial standards across the board, in the race to publish the newest tidbit about these events, no matter how inconsequential.
posted by UbuRoivas at 4:00 PM on April 24, 2013 [3 favorites]


Is There Such Thing as Too Much Evidence?
Assembling the case against Dzhokhar Tsarnaev won't be as simple as it appears from the news.

It Could've Been This Easy for Boston's Bombers to Use a Cellphone Detonator
We see cellphone detonators all the time in the movies and on television, which sometimes seem to stretch the limits of even fictional terrorist technology. (Homeland, most recently.) But could two brothers living in Massachusetts have learned to make one — and make it work?

It’s not safe here, we gotta’ go back to Israel

I told her, “no honey, this is the garage and the laundry room – here in America we don’t need bomb shelters because there are no bombs and no sirens”.
posted by Joe in Australia at 4:02 PM on April 24, 2013 [1 favorite]


His point, that they demonstrated paramilitary training in largely evading 120 bullets shot their way by police, makes sense."

The newspaper carriers who were shot by LAPD officers in the manhunt for Dorner were trapped in their truck, and despite being shot at dozens of times, one was hit all of twice and the other had what sounds like shrapnel wounds. No paramilitary training necessary.
posted by rtha at 4:28 PM on April 24, 2013




I told her, “no honey, this is the garage and the laundry room – here in America we don’t need bomb shelters because there are no bombs and no sirens”.

That's just a ridiculous lie to tell a child. I half-expected a line saying "and she looked at me as though I had betrayed her" which mercifully wasn't there in that self-absorbed BS. Because if you have enough access to the internet that the Times of Israel is publishing your blog posts, then you know damn well there are bombs and sirens in the U.S., and to tell your child that there aren't is just setting them up for a harsh, harsh loss of innocence and trust when your words are proved false.
posted by headnsouth at 4:36 PM on April 24, 2013 [2 favorites]


The police seem really blase about them.

A couple summers back we had a few of these -- deep, booming, heard for a mile or so away -- and at 2am-ish to boot. No arrests ever made, but then no reports of damage either. Somebody getting their rocks off, I guess, and that's common enough (I have mentioned my own bottle-bomb exploits as a teen). I think that's the key -- police like having things where they can actually follow up with real consequences for somebody, not a long investigation that leads to disturbing the peace.
posted by dhartung at 4:54 PM on April 24, 2013 [2 favorites]


headnsouth: "That's just a ridiculous lie to tell a child. I half-expected a line saying "and she looked at me as though I had betrayed her""

I dunno if you have kids, but that's not a ridiculous lie, it's practical. Her kid is five. When my son was five, I made the mistake of explaining how the odds of robbers coming to our house were extremely low, due to its location, street lighting, etc. etc. I then spent the next year and a half having to constantly reassure him that robbers were not coming to our house, because at 5, you hear "there's a miniscule chance" as "well, dad didn't say no, so yes".

Also, you have bomb sirens in the US?
posted by Bugbread at 4:56 PM on April 24, 2013 [2 favorites]


We have early warning sirens. Where I grew up they were mostly for tornados. Never for a bomb.
posted by Bookhouse at 4:57 PM on April 24, 2013


Boston suspect had no firearm when barrage of bullets hit hiding place

"The FBI declined to discuss the exact sequence of events that led officers to open fire on Tsarnaev’s hiding place and whether the dozens of bullets that struck the boat caused any of his gunshot wounds."

Wow, good thing they got the right guy.
posted by griphus at 5:00 PM on April 24, 2013 [2 favorites]


Boston suspect had no firearm when barrage of bullets hit hiding place

Firstly, I want to say that I understand the tension and stress that the police would be under, but do we know what it was that caused them to fire a 'barrage' of bullets into the boat? By which I mean, did a firecracker go off, was there an accidental discharge by a cop, did Dzhokhar have something that looked like a gun?

It seems we could quite easily have been dealing with a dead body here, and if Dzhokhar had died, then I reckon at least some of the praise for Boston PD's response would have to be reconsidered.
posted by knapah at 5:02 PM on April 24, 2013 [2 favorites]


So there are some missing guns.
posted by Miko at 5:09 PM on April 24, 2013


Apparently one of the bullets went through Dzhokhar's mouth and that's why he cannot - or barely can - speak at the moment.

UPDATE: Tamerlan Tsarnaev was on the CIA's Terrorist Identities database
posted by nickyskye at 5:12 PM on April 24, 2013


I then spent the next year and a half having to constantly reassure him that robbers were not coming to our house, because at 5, you hear "there's a miniscule chance" as "well, dad didn't say no, so yes".

I do have kids and she was moving to San Francisco. There were going to be sirens, likely that very day. Bombs maybe not, but major U.S. city post 9/11 = "they have them but we're safe here, it's not like where we used to live" or "the sirens here mean the police and firefighters are keeping us safe, not bombs."

Also, you have bomb sirens in the US?

We have bombs and we have sirens, which is how she phrased it to her child, "no bombs and no sirens." It was a vanity piece, exploiting a horrible tragedy and crime.
posted by headnsouth at 5:16 PM on April 24, 2013


headnsouth: "There were going to be sirens, likely that very day."

What kind of sirens do you have in San Francisco? It's not a tornado area, and you can't really sound an earthquake siren.
posted by Bugbread at 5:17 PM on April 24, 2013


That's just a ridiculous lie to tell a child. I half-expected a line saying "and she looked at me as though I had betrayed her" which mercifully wasn't there in that self-absorbed BS. Because if you have enough access to the internet that the Times of Israel is publishing your blog posts, then you know damn well there are bombs and sirens in the U.S.

The bombs she's talking about are the ones on the end of a missile; that's why she said that they didn't need bomb shelters. The sirens she's talking about are the ones which go off when there's a missile attack, meaning that everybody has to get into a bomb shelter right away. That's not the same thing as, e.g., police or ambulance sirens; and she was unaware of the sirens at the nearby refinery. I would have been, too. I suppose she might have phrased things more carefully, but she was talking to a child, and sometimes when you talk to a child you need to answer their question without getting into technicalities.

The correct response to "Are there any monsters?" is "No, there are no monsters", not "Well, there are people who do horrible things through viciousness or insanity, like the guy who skinned women after raping them. And then there are people who have scary-looking injuries or deformities, despite being perfectly nice. And I suppose there might be people who are both horrible and look scary, but as far as I know none of them are in the house right now."
posted by Joe in Australia at 5:20 PM on April 24, 2013 [11 favorites]


...series of unexplained explosions (previously mentioned in either this or the old thread) that were reported in a nearby town sometime back in March?
I don't know whether I'm comforted or concerned that they weren't connected to these noises. They're very real, though we haven't heard one in a while. The police seem really blase about them


In Flint, after similar complaints, the police finally admitted to a secret bombing range.
posted by various at 5:23 PM on April 24, 2013 [1 favorite]


Like Joe in Australia is saying, if an Israeli talks about sirens they're talking about this (40 seconds), not the police, fire engines or ambulances.
posted by knapah at 5:24 PM on April 24, 2013 [1 favorite]


In Flint, after similar complaints, the police finally admitted to a secret bombing range.

Wow. I mean, I understand the logic -- if there's one thing you can expect to keep secret it's recurring explosions, clearly, but, just, wow.
posted by griphus at 5:25 PM on April 24, 2013 [1 favorite]


That's exactly the air-raid-type siren that summons firefighters from miles around where there's a fire in my hometown. They're all over the country.

(I won't say any more about it as it's becoming a mini-derail, it just seemed to be stretching to say BOSTON AFFECTED ME TOO!!!! for cheap blog hits.)
posted by headnsouth at 5:30 PM on April 24, 2013


Tamerlan Tsarnaev was on the CIA's Terrorist Identities database

Tamerlan Tsarnaev Placed in Database Perceived as Weak, Even by DHS
posted by homunculus at 5:31 PM on April 24, 2013 [1 favorite]


During those tense late night hours, we kept hearing about this person who was like Jason Bourne -- armed and extremely dangerous according to all the talking heads, capable of engaging and then evading hundreds of police, and likely in possession of explosives, perhaps even a suicide vest.

And now it turns out that what we were dealing with was a scrawny child, scared shitless, mentally defeated, hiding desperately in a boat, completely unarmed and weaponless. Given the swiss-cheese state of the boat, it's really surprising that he ended up in relatively good health.
posted by Rhomboid at 5:32 PM on April 24, 2013 [5 favorites]


Firstly, I want to say that I understand the tension and stress that the police would be under, but do we know what it was that caused them to fire a 'barrage' of bullets into the boat? By which I mean, did a firecracker go off, was there an accidental discharge by a cop, did Dzhokhar have something that looked like a gun?

I imagine it was a Kent State type scenario where one dude's itchy trigger finger set off a chain reaction that resulted in everyone firing.

Would you admit you shot accidentally - even if you were aware that you had ? I sure as fuck wouldn't. I oughta. But I wouldn't.
posted by Pogo_Fuzzybutt at 5:33 PM on April 24, 2013 [1 favorite]


Pogo_Fuzzybutt shot first!
posted by ChurchHatesTucker at 5:35 PM on April 24, 2013 [4 favorites]


headnsouth: "That's exactly the air-raid-type siren that summons firefighters from miles around where there's a fire in my hometown. They're all over the country."

Wow. We don't (or, at least, didn't, as of 1996 or so) have anything like that in Houston.

headnsouth: "I won't say any more about it as it's becoming a mini-derail, it just seemed to be stretching to say BOSTON AFFECTED ME TOO!!!! for cheap blog hits."

Oh, totally agree on that.
posted by Bugbread at 5:37 PM on April 24, 2013


Man, that secret bombing range story is only going to give the conspiracy theorists more grist for their mills.

But on that topic, I'm not sure the police response really deserves any praise for avoiding collateral damage given that all the evidence seems to their being unable to hit much of anything at all.
posted by hoople at 5:38 PM on April 24, 2013


Rachel Maddow is going to town on the Boston myths right now.
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 6:03 PM on April 24, 2013


Rachel Maddow is going to town on the Boston myths right now.

Which myths? That the arrangement of retired numbers was a curse?
posted by ChurchHatesTucker at 6:09 PM on April 24, 2013 [4 favorites]


That the government planned Boston, that all Muslims are terrorists, etc.
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 6:12 PM on April 24, 2013


>That the arrangement of retired [Red Sox] numbers was a curse?

Does that mean Dan Shaughnessy is Misha?
posted by wensink at 6:18 PM on April 24, 2013


That's exactly the air-raid-type siren that summons firefighters from miles around where there's a fire in my hometown. They're all over the country.

The VFD a couple miles from my house in rural western PA has one. I think the pitch and/or duration may be slightly different than the air-raid sirens I've heard, but the gist is the same.
posted by dirigibleman at 6:19 PM on April 24, 2013




I dunno if you have kids, but that's not a ridiculous lie, it's practical. Her kid is five. When my son was five, I made the mistake of explaining how the odds of robbers coming to our house were extremely low, due to its location, street lighting, etc. etc. I then spent the next year and a half having to constantly reassure him that robbers were not coming to our house, because at 5, you hear "there's a miniscule chance" as "well, dad didn't say no, so yes".

When Younger Monster was five, some assholes bombed some very important places in the US with airplanes and murdered an Imperial Shit-ton of innocent people. This happened on a day when we were having our mayoral primary elections, and his school was our voting venue. And even though there were people posted outside the school asking voters to STFU about the events of the morning, they didn't want the kids to know until the end of the instructional day, well, word got out.

So when my five year-old got out of school and asked me about bombs and bad guys and people dying, I told him the truth, in words that he could understand and reassured him that everyone we knew in those areas was safe and well and out of harm's way. It really sucked to have to explain to a kindergartener that the world can be a really ugly place sometimes, I had hoped to delay that conversation for a while, but when you're a member of a mixed ethnicity family, and people of half the family's ethnicity have just committed a horrible crime...well, sometimes you have to have the hard conversations a lot earlier than you might like, and then you have to deal with the fallout of a young kid trying to process that.

I'm glad I told him the truth, though.

Also, you have bomb sirens in the US?

Yep. "Civil defense" sirens. In some areas of the country, they double as tornado sirens, or tsunami warning sirens, or "Hey, the nuclear power plant is melting down" sirens. (In my city, the civil defense sirens are for tornadoes AND nuclear accidents, whee!)
posted by MissySedai at 6:39 PM on April 24, 2013 [3 favorites]


ep. "Civil defense" sirens. In some areas of the country, they double as tornado sirens, or tsunami warning sirens, or "Hey, the nuclear power plant is melting down" sirens.

Or "HEY GUYS, FOR LACK OF ACTUAL EMERGENCIES, SAVE THE OCCASIONAL FIRE, I'VE BEEN SET UP TO TELL YOU THAT IT'S NOON RIGHT NOW. NOON!!! RIGHT THIS VERY MINUTE!!!!!" sirens.
posted by evidenceofabsence at 7:02 PM on April 24, 2013 [10 favorites]


Yeah, back where I grew up the consensus was that the Russians would attack at noon on a Saturday. Nobody would see it coming.
posted by ChurchHatesTucker at 7:04 PM on April 24, 2013 [3 favorites]


Ha ha noon on a Saturday. How ridiculous!

Now, excuse me while I make a series of private but completely non-suspicious phone calls.
posted by griphus at 7:08 PM on April 24, 2013 [2 favorites]


Nobody would see it coming

Except Hollywood, maybe?
posted by lampshade at 7:09 PM on April 24, 2013 [1 favorite]


In Brooklyn, air raid sirens go off about an hour or two before sundown, every Friday evening to announce the approach of the Jewish Shabbat (Shabbath, Shabbes, Shobos, etc.), which begins at sundown Friday and goes all day Saturday until (and I just learned this fascinating bit) night and three stars are visible in the night sky. Which considering the light pollution in this place, three stars can take a while to show up...


And that reminds me of a joke: A Rabbi from Brooklyn with a frog on his shoulder walks into a bar...
posted by Skygazer at 7:12 PM on April 24, 2013 [1 favorite]


Oh, so eponysterical.

I'm surprised to hear that civil defense sirens are still a thing in the USA. What are you supposed to do if you're not sure whether it's a tornado or a tsunami? It would be very embarrassing to run into the basement just before half the ocean cascades down your steps.
posted by Joe in Australia at 7:18 PM on April 24, 2013 [4 favorites]


In the part of Illinois I live in (and as noted upthread) there are sirens for all sorts of weather events. When I first came out here, I sort of scoffed at their effectiveness. Now after a few years I have really come to appreciate the simple effectiveness of letting people know that a situation may arise that one needs to be aware of.

In the case of my area, it tends to be flash rain squalls and windstorms and on more than one occasion I have been driving, heard the siren, found out what was coming and took shelter.

Simple and effective.
posted by lampshade at 7:19 PM on April 24, 2013


What are you supposed to do if you're not sure whether it's a tornado or a tsunami?

Check Twitter, obviously.
posted by restless_nomad at 7:19 PM on April 24, 2013 [8 favorites]


I've never heard any air raid sirens (lived in Virginia, Massachusetts and New York City (Brooklyn))
posted by sweetkid at 7:21 PM on April 24, 2013


What are you supposed to do if you're not sure whether it's a tornado or a tsunami?


Well, the first thing is to set your DVR to record the part of the Real Housewives of New Jersey that you will miss while you check out the weather channel.
posted by lampshade at 7:21 PM on April 24, 2013 [1 favorite]


What are you supposed to do if you're not sure whether it's a tornado or a tsunami?

Move.
posted by dirigibleman at 7:21 PM on April 24, 2013 [20 favorites]


MissySedai: "So when my five year-old got out of school and asked me about bombs and bad guys and people dying, I told him the truth, in words that he could understand and reassured him that everyone we knew in those areas was safe and well and out of harm's way."

Right, but that's a very different issue, right? You didn't tell him about terrorists and suicide bombing in August, 2001, or July, 2001. You told him when 9/11 happened.

Headnsouth is saying that it's horrible parenting to move from a country where there are bomb shelters in houses, and frequent non-test air raid sirens indicating rocket attacks on your city, to a country where bombing is so rare that not only will you probably live your whole life without ever hearing a bomb go off, but you might not ever even meet someone who has heard a bomb go off, and say "there are no bombs here". That, to me, seems like a ridiculous accusation to make based on a parent saying something 99.99% true. Am I horrible parent for saying "Don't worry, there's nothing hiding in your closet", when in reality there's a non-zero chance that there is something hiding in the closet?
posted by Bugbread at 7:22 PM on April 24, 2013 [1 favorite]


It would be very embarrassing to run into the basement just before half the ocean cascades down your steps.

Most houses don't have basements where I live, so easy choice.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 7:24 PM on April 24, 2013


About the bullet holes in the boat, the police scanner was very clear that the police were firing "dummy rounds" into the boat. I have no idea what that means in this context, but maybe they were rubber/rubber-coated bullets?
posted by stopgap at 7:28 PM on April 24, 2013


Earthquake sirens (well, I guess they're generally for big emergencies, but I think everyone I know thinks of them as earthquake-specific) here in San Francisco are tested every Tuesday at noon.
posted by rtha at 7:36 PM on April 24, 2013


Tornado sirens in Indiana are 11am on Fridays.
posted by headspace at 7:59 PM on April 24, 2013


Firing 'dummy rounds' makes no sense at all. As far as I know, they're totally inert and are used for checking rifle actions work and so on.
posted by knapah at 8:22 PM on April 24, 2013


maybe they were rubber/rubber-coated bullets?

Actually that rings a bell. I feel certain that I read this at some time over the last couple of days, because I was surprised, but of course the idea was they wanted to take him alive.
posted by Miko at 8:46 PM on April 24, 2013


Someone else shared my theory about the lifting of the lockdown: Jane Jacobs, Terrorist Hunter?
posted by Miko at 8:56 PM on April 24, 2013


Since both brothers were internet savvy, knew about surveillance cameras, it seemed odd that they did not try to hide their identities during the planting of the bombs. Perhaps they both intended the terrorist act they committed to be suicidal?

I've sprung young people shoplifting from my workplace in plain sight of our cameras, iphone in one hand and their contraband in the other. For a lot of young folk cameras are so ubiquitous they just don't think about them any more. For a pair of young, otherwise criminally inexperienced idiots, I can easily see how this would not have crossed their minds for a moment.
posted by Jilder at 9:02 PM on April 24, 2013 [2 favorites]


News fail.
posted by nickyskye at 9:27 PM on April 24, 2013


Doesn't necessarily have to be a news fail. It could be true that they are on the list and that officials claim that they are not.
posted by empath at 9:58 PM on April 24, 2013 [1 favorite]


I find it hard to believe that they weren't shooting regular ammunition. I expect that police would always want to bring suspects in alive, but nonetheless: they are issued with regular bullets, not rubber-coated ones. Also, at least one bullet went through a wall and an office chair. If that was a rubber-coated bullet then they're just as lethal as any other sort.
posted by Joe in Australia at 10:08 PM on April 24, 2013




empath: "Doesn't necessarily have to be a news fail. It could be true that they are on the list and that officials claim that they are not."

Also, if you look at the blurbs themselves, the article on the left says he was on watch lists in 2011, and the article on the right says he was not on a watch list last year (2012). Both could be true.
posted by Bugbread at 10:18 PM on April 24, 2013


Also, if you look at the blurbs themselves, the article on the left says he was on watch lists in 2011, and the article on the right says he was not on a watch list last year (2012). Both could be true.

From the Wall Street Journal:

"Tamerlan's return to the U.S. last summer failed to "ping" at DHS. His listing on TECS had lapsed, since the FBI had closed his file. Tamerlan's return to Russia should at least have extended his stay on the watch list. The Patriot Act and other policy changes after 9/11 were meant to prevent this kind of cock-up. One arm of America's intelligence and law enforcement apparatus is supposed to know what the other arm is doing."
posted by knapah at 10:24 PM on April 24, 2013 [1 favorite]


Also, at least one bullet went through a wall and an office chair.

That was during the shootout on the street where the police were surely firing live rounds.
I, too, recall mentions of dummy rounds during the boat standoff, also flashbangs which would be startling but not damaging. Additionally, there was a half-full gas tank on the boat that they did not want to light up either. By this point, I assume law enforcement were more prepared for an event like this (some sort of standoff where they hoped to take the suspect alive) as opposed to an unexpected shootout with patrol officers using what guns they had on them.
posted by bobobox at 4:34 AM on April 25, 2013 [2 favorites]


Using a new trick I learned from this thread: dummy rounds near: Watertown.
posted by bobobox at 4:36 AM on April 25, 2013 [1 favorite]


WSJ: Tamerlan's return to Russia should at least have extended his stay on the watch list.

From an Atlantic Wire piece (surely linked somewhere upthread but I'll be damned if I can't find it):

The reason for this time limitation is simple: civil rights. The government cannot keep an open file on you forever, looking into everything you do. This is a feature, not a bug.

They're talking about why Tamerlan was removed from the list in that blurb. I guess we could argue about whether or not a trip to Russia should have kept him on the list but that won't change the fact that to the FBI his threat level was very low and they were seemingly doing what they should in honoring the man's civil rights as a citizen by removing him from the list, right?
posted by youandiandaflame at 4:37 AM on April 25, 2013 [1 favorite]


News fail.
posted by nickyskye


Depaending on which databases you are looking at, these two aren't mutually exclusive. One can certainly be on a database and NOT on the "No Fly" list or vice-versa.
posted by The 10th Regiment of Foot at 4:40 AM on April 25, 2013


The final 24 hours of Boston bombing manhunt. Well-told reconstruct.

Law enforcement officials now say they have recovered only one gun elsewhere, which they believe was used by Mr. Tsarnaev’s older brother, Tamerlan — not the three previously reported.
posted by nickyskye at 5:52 AM on April 25, 2013 [4 favorites]


Police officials initially said the boat was in the backyard of a house just outside the perimeter of the area where investigators had conducted door-to-door searches all day. But Commissioner Davis, of the Boston police, said this week that the boat had been inside the perimeter.

“It was an area that should have been checked,” he said. “We are not sure how long he was in the boat. There was a pool of blood near where the car was dumped about four or five blocks away from the boat.”
posted by Miko at 6:02 AM on April 25, 2013


Had to include this unusual sentence because of the old-fashioned term, chimney sweep. Mike Doucette, 27, a chimney sweep who lives on the street, described seeing one brother shot and fall to the ground. He was still moving when the other brother went “screaming up the street” in the S.U.V.
posted by nickyskye at 6:05 AM on April 25, 2013 [1 favorite]


It's not old-fashioned - that's a lot of people's career. It's more common all over New England where there are many more fireplaces, but I am sure there are also chimney sweeps in the Mid-Atlantic because they're essential for fire safety. Google 'em up.

Fun fact, many of them also offer the service of showing up at your wedding for good luck.
posted by Miko at 6:21 AM on April 25, 2013 [4 favorites]


A single gun would imply that Tamerlan was the one responsible for the vast majority of the mayhem post-bombing -- killing Collier, carjacking the SUV, firing at police. Dzhokhar seems to have been a much more passive participant as getaway driver and bank card wielder. That's not to say that he's absolved from anything, as they are equally guilty in the eyes of the law. And he seemed an equal participant in the initial bombing as well. But it does lend credibility to the narrative that he was heavily influenced by his brother and that this whole thing might never have happened if it was just Dzhokhar.
posted by Rhomboid at 6:21 AM on April 25, 2013 [4 favorites]


I am really, really wary of that narrative. He could be a lot smarter than that. Who's to say he wasn't the one manipulating his brother's uncritically brutal tendencies?
posted by Miko at 6:26 AM on April 25, 2013 [2 favorites]


It also might mean that there are more guns yet to be found by authorities.
posted by The 10th Regiment of Foot at 6:29 AM on April 25, 2013 [2 favorites]


I am really, really wary of that narrative. He could be a lot smarter than that. Who's to say he wasn't the one manipulating his brother's uncritically brutal tendencies?

That's certainly possible, but goes against every narrative we have on these guys, their travels, and their friendships.
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 6:43 AM on April 25, 2013 [1 favorite]


> this whole thing might never have happened if it was just Dzhokhar.

... or if Dzhokhar had managed to say "no" to his brother as voicelessly as he said "no" to the FBI when asked if he could afford legal representation.

> I expect that police would always want to bring suspects in alive

That was very nearly achieved. The hospital reported that Tamerlan had multiple gunshot wounds, yet the released picture of Tamerlan's head, torso and upper limbs showed very little in the way of (potentially lethal) gunshot wounds. Perhaps the wounds were in his lower limbs, not shown in the photo. Given Tamerlan's body can be retrieved by family, presumably his cause of death has been determined and certified. Most likely it will be multiple trauma from motor vehicle strike. (Dzhokhar will probably be charged with that in the coming days.)



And this: Dzhokhar was talking with hostage negotiators at the boat-scene; he was verbally responsive with arresting officers at the boat-scene; and he was reportedly cursing in the ambulance all the way to the hospital. He was able to talk.

In hospital he was sedated and intubated. Patients intubated with cuffed tracheostomy tubes are rendered voiceless because exhaling air through the vocal cords (the very thing that produces voice) is not possible. Immediately the tube is removed, or the cuff is deflated, Dzhokhar will find his voice, intact.
posted by de at 6:57 AM on April 25, 2013 [1 favorite]


Immediately the tube is removed, or the cuff is deflated, Dzhokhar will find his voice, in tact.

Once he was read his Miranda rights, he stopped talking. My guess is that we won't hear too much more from ole Jahar.
posted by (Arsenio) Hall and (Warren) Oates at 6:59 AM on April 25, 2013


That's certainly possible, but goes against every narrative we have on these guys, their travels, and their friendships

That's exactly my point. I'm not sure this narrative is trustworthy, if he has the qualities of a sociopath. It's possible.
posted by Miko at 7:02 AM on April 25, 2013


Prior to being read his rights he was writing answers.
posted by de at 7:02 AM on April 25, 2013 [2 favorites]


True, he was nodding and writing before being read his rights. I just mean to say that even if he does find his literal voice (which is looking entirely likely), I speculate that voice will remain quite quiet, per his legal advice.
posted by (Arsenio) Hall and (Warren) Oates at 7:05 AM on April 25, 2013 [1 favorite]


Yes, his voice will only serve to incriminate, now.
posted by de at 7:08 AM on April 25, 2013 [1 favorite]


Immediately the tube is removed, or the cuff is deflated, Dzhokhar will find his voice, intact.

Unless he suffers one of the occasional side effects of intubation such as laryngotracheal stenosis or vocal cord paralysis.
posted by The 10th Regiment of Foot at 7:14 AM on April 25, 2013


Somewhere in between being a heartless pyschopath who acted like a nice kid his entire life as a ruse, and a witless accomplice to a horrible crime, there is another possibility -- a depressed and possibly suicidal teenager abandoned by his parents, failing at school, and doing a lot of drugs who simply gave up on life and agreed to help out his brother because why the fuck not. He is certainly an outlier when it comes to personality profiles of people who pull off these kinds of attacks, and I keep waiting for more information to come in that suggests something more sinister. Instead, it seems like it's all the opposite -- nobody has yet come forth with a "I knew there was something off" anecdote, he didn't have a gun (and maybe never had a gun), they decided to do it in the week before the attack. It's an enigma for sure.
posted by (Arsenio) Hall and (Warren) Oates at 7:16 AM on April 25, 2013 [18 favorites]


via NBC News Twitter: CONFIRMED: Brown University student falsely identified as Boston bombing suspect found dead in Providence River

.
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 7:39 AM on April 25, 2013 [2 favorites]


.
posted by rosswald at 7:44 AM on April 25, 2013


.
posted by Golden Eternity at 7:45 AM on April 25, 2013


I'm surprised to hear that civil defense sirens are still a thing in the USA.
One day one went off when I was walking near it. I was within five yards of its base. I didn't even know it existed until it went off - to the extent that I noticed it at all, I assumed it was a big lamp post or something like that. It was the loudest thing ever. Ever. Like, painful loud.
What are you supposed to do if you're not sure whether it's a tornado or a tsunami?
In my experience, you're supposed to get the fuck away from the siren.
posted by Flunkie at 7:47 AM on April 25, 2013 [8 favorites]


I used to have an apartment where the bedroom window was about 150 feet from a fire department siren, and pointed directly at it.

And yet somehow I still slept through the time a warehouse down the street burned to the ground.
posted by Holy Zarquon's Singing Fish at 7:51 AM on April 25, 2013


Somewhere in between being a heartless pyschopath who acted like a nice kid his entire life as a ruse, and a witless accomplice to a horrible crime, there is another possibility --

They had no exit plan. The bombs they made were "crude". They didn't even have getaway vehicles secured (one jacked, the other picked up from the shop before it was done). They had limited firepower. They didn't even know to leave town after the deed and stopped at the 7-11 for redbulls the night of their getaway.

These guys were a couple of amateurs who did not have organized support or a real plan. They threw it all together based on what they'd seen in movies. These weren't calculated sociopaths.
posted by The 10th Regiment of Foot at 7:55 AM on April 25, 2013 [5 favorites]


via NBC News Twitter: CONFIRMED: Brown University student falsely identified as Boston bombing suspect found dead in Providence River

His name was Sunil Tripathi.

.
posted by sweetkid at 7:56 AM on April 25, 2013 [9 favorites]


sweetkid, sorry for the omission. Of course. I just copy/pasted the tweet without thinking.
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 7:59 AM on April 25, 2013 [2 favorites]


NYT: Parents Say Boston Bombing Suspects Are Innocent
MAKHACHKALA, Russia — The parents of the two men accused of the bomb attack that killed three people and wounded more than 260 near the finish line of the Boston Marathon insisted on Thursday that their sons were innocent and had no connection to radical Islam.

In an outpouring of anguish and anger at a news conference here in the capital of Dagestan, the parents, Anzor and Zubeidat Tsarnaev, also made accusations of a conspiracy in which the American authorities murdered their older son, Tamerlan, after seizing him.

Officials in the United States have said that Tamerlan was shot during a wild standoff with the police and was run over by a car driven by his younger brother as he escaped from the scene. The younger brother, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, was captured and has been charged with using a weapon of mass destruction. He is recovering in a Boston hospital and may face the death penalty if convicted. Officials have also released video showing the brothers near the site of the marathon bombing.

posted by rosswald at 8:02 AM on April 25, 2013 [1 favorite]




From rosswald's linked NYT Times article: “Killed, truly killed,” she said, describing the images. “I wanted to scream, to scream to the whole world: ‘What did you do? What have you done with my son? He was alive. Why did they need to kill him? Why not send him to Guantánamo or whatever. Why did they kill him? Why did they have to kill him? They got him alive. He was in their hands.'”

Oh, WOW.
posted by youandiandaflame at 8:09 AM on April 25, 2013 [1 favorite]


Once he was read his Miranda rights, he stopped talking.

I didn't see a cite for this, so Officials: Suspect stopped talking after Miranda.

But, you know, keep in mind that much of what "officials" have said to the press in this episode has turned out to be wrong. In that same article, for example, we now find out that "officials" are saying the younger brother did *not* actually have a gun with him in the boat, and was found unarmed:

Authorities had previously said Dzhokhar exchanged gunfire with them for more than an hour Friday night before they captured him inside a boat covered by a tarp in a suburban Boston neighborhood backyard. But two U.S. officials said Wednesday that he was unarmed when captured, raising questions about the gunfire and how he was injured...

The officials told the AP that no gun was found in the boat. Boston police Commissioner Ed Davis said earlier that shots were fired from inside the boat.

Asked whether the suspect had a gun in the boat, Davis said, "I'm not going to talk about that."

posted by mediareport at 8:16 AM on April 25, 2013 [1 favorite]


Yeah, Zubeidat Tsarnaev is obviously grieving, and should not be making statements to the press. IMHO.
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 8:22 AM on April 25, 2013 [4 favorites]


Why did they kill him?

They didn't. Your other son killed him by running him over. This occurred after they two set off bomb that killed three and injured hundreds, then killed a cop, stole a car and then got into an extend firefight with police.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 8:23 AM on April 25, 2013 [3 favorites]


He was alive. Why did they need to kill him?

It should be noted that in the previous paragraph it was stated that she had seen the footage of the naked guy being put in custody and mistakenly thought it was Tamerlan.

And then there's this:
He asked if she has seen the news images of the actual bombings and the suffering they caused.

"I haven't," she answered. There was no blood, she said. It was paint. But her disbelief broke down when she spoke of the victims.

"I really feel sorry for all of them. Really feel sorry for all of them," she said, her voice cracking. But she is resolute about not believing that her sons, Dzhokhar, 19, and Tamerlan, 26 were involved.
So, yeah, grief is weird.
posted by Rhomboid at 8:25 AM on April 25, 2013 [2 favorites]


Your other son killed him by running him over.

I don't think this is true?
posted by sweetkid at 8:25 AM on April 25, 2013


One thing I did leave off from my list above that does point to a more "professional" operation is that the only person that could have talked about who Tamerlan met with in Russia is dead (according to official accounts) at the hands of his partner. When Al Qaeda (or another organization) plans something like this, they're sure to go out in the initial event or that they are never caught alive.

I've wondered about that for the last week or so after hearing how Tamerlan charged the cops (suicide by cop?) and then when caught alive was run over by his brother. It's the detail that doesn't seem to fit with the litany of amateurism.
posted by The 10th Regiment of Foot at 8:25 AM on April 25, 2013 [1 favorite]


Yeah, Zubeidat Tsarnaev is obviously grieving, and should not be making statements to the press. IMHO.

I was trying to think of similar reactions -- I suppose Martin Bryant's mother qualifies. She has stated that she believes that Martin was not responsible for the Port Arthur massacre. It must be just unfathomably difficult to wrap your head around the fact that one of your children did something so horrible.
posted by (Arsenio) Hall and (Warren) Oates at 8:25 AM on April 25, 2013 [3 favorites]


also: yeah, she's upset. I can't imagine her kind of grief. I feel like people could ease up on her, damn.
posted by sweetkid at 8:26 AM on April 25, 2013 [4 favorites]


I'm surprised to hear that civil defense sirens are still a thing in the USA. What are you supposed to do if you're not sure whether it's a tornado or a tsunami? It would be very embarrassing to run into the basement just before half the ocean cascades down your steps.

I've always thought of them as tornado sirens. It never occurred to me until very recently that they are what we'd also use if we were getting bombed. Tornados can develop quickly, so they are pretty useful, which is why they are still in service. I don't think anyone in Minnesota is spending money keeping up a system to use in the event of a bombing campaign.

Last week, they tested all of the sirens here a couple times. I think it was part of getting ready for the Summer and Spring months.
posted by Area Man at 8:27 AM on April 25, 2013


I have heard people say that she also encouraged her sons' religious awakenings as a hedge against crime/drugs/sex/etc., so there also may be some degree of guilt about her role in what happened (not that I think anything that has been described so far is criminal/immoral).
posted by rosswald at 9:05 AM on April 25, 2013 [5 favorites]




10th regiment: its amateurishness depends on how your mental movie of that gunfight plays out (and thus, until the final story is out, hard to say for sure). To me the way I've been picturing it playing-out seems like dark comedy: pinned down with only a single fire-arm between them, the brothers stake their lives upon a daring gambit. The older brother will break cover, thereby drawing their opponents' attention away from the younger brother; the younger brother will use this brief moment of opportunity to sneak away, seize the SUV, and then use it to steamroller their unsuspecting opponents.

But, Murphy's law kicks in and events transpire almost exactly backwards: the brothers' enemies *do* manage to hear the oncoming SUV in time to safely avoid it, but the older brother -- heavily injured and thus no longer very mobile -- completely fails to get out of the way of the vehicle.

So although it's *possible* the younger brother drove over his older brother as part of a "clean-up" strategy, there's also a seemingly-reasonable sequence of events in which it's just another example of their amateurish too-clever-by-maybe-a-quarter approach (similar to the way they seemingly *threw* a pressure cooker bomb at their enemies earlier in the firefight, which seemingly resulted in the pressure cooker getting bent out of shape and thus made greatly less effective).
posted by hoople at 9:15 AM on April 25, 2013 [2 favorites]




This NYT video has a several witness accounts about the shootout and the SUV running over Tamerlan. There also some strange and rather ghoulish remarks from people "touring" the location. They say they are looking to both satisfy their curiosity and to recover, but I cannot feature bringing children along to gawk. People are weird.
posted by feste at 9:19 AM on April 25, 2013 [2 favorites]


that's a much appreciated public service, wensink! thanks.
posted by sweetkid at 9:21 AM on April 25, 2013


NBC News: Boston Marathon bombers discussed coming to New York to detonate the balance of their explosives in Times Square
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 9:44 AM on April 25, 2013


NBC News: Boston Marathon bombers discussed coming to New York to detonate

An actual link to the story would be nice as opposed to a link to a tweet from a producer at MSNBC about something that was posted somewhere else..
posted by lampshade at 9:52 AM on April 25, 2013


Based on nothing in particular, I've wondered if Dzhokhar used the SUV to run over Tamerlan in an attempt to set off the vest bomb.

It seems far more likely that it was simply the result of panic or desperation to get away, but the amount of cognitive dissonance in that young man's brain must be deafening. I wonder if he knows he killed his brother.
posted by faineant at 9:57 AM on April 25, 2013


Or "HEY GUYS, FOR LACK OF ACTUAL EMERGENCIES, SAVE THE OCCASIONAL FIRE, I'VE BEEN SET UP TO TELL YOU THAT IT'S NOON RIGHT NOW. NOON!!! RIGHT THIS VERY MINUTE!!!!!" sirens.

*snerk*

Yup, first Friday of every month here. Startles the hell out of my exchange students every summer.

What are you supposed to do if you're not sure whether it's a tornado or a tsunami?

Presumably, you know which is the more common scenario where you live. If we had a tsumani here in NW OH, I'd be pretty impressed. I mean, Lake Erie can get pretty rowdy, but I don't think she's ever been quite THAT rowdy.

I am generally pretty grateful for the sirens to alert me to Impending Weather, but the year Elder Monster spent the summer working at an amusement park/resort about an hour from here was also the summer that our area had a huge number of severe storms and actual tornadoes. Nearly died of fright and worry that summer every time the damned things went off.
posted by MissySedai at 10:07 AM on April 25, 2013


Based on nothing in particular, I’ve wondered if Dzhokhar used the SUV to run over Tamerlan in an attempt to set off the vest bomb.

I believe the latest is that there never was a vest bomb. Tamerlan was found with a trigger device, presumably for the pressure cooker bomb used during the police chase or shootout. He also had a smaller “grenade” explode in his hand while he was trying to throw it. This combination led to fears that he may have been wired with explosives, though he actually wasn’t.

Faulty information that comes out during live events really is difficult to correct later — no wonder people come up with conspiracy theories. Compare this minor issue with the report above of the suspects’ mother believing that Tamerlan was taken into custody unharmed because she had seen footage of the “naked guy.”
posted by stopgap at 10:13 AM on April 25, 2013 [5 favorites]


I believe the latest is that there never was a vest bomb. Tamerlan was found with a trigger device, presumably for the pressure cooker bomb used during the police chase or shootout. He also had a smaller "grenade" explode in his hand while he was trying to throw it. This combination led to fears that he may have been wired with explosives, though he actually wasn't.
posted by stopgap


Well, took care of that bit of idle speculation, thanks - though it was less conspiracy theory than trying to grasp a mindset.
posted by faineant at 10:17 AM on April 25, 2013


These guys were a couple of amateurs who did not have organized support or a real plan. They threw it all together based on what they'd seen in movies. These weren't calculated sociopaths.

I keep expecting to see the term "slacker terrorists" in the media. I'll cringe when I do, because it assumes we understand more about their motives than we do, and it trivializes the bad they've done. But otherwise, it seems to fit.
posted by benito.strauss at 10:17 AM on April 25, 2013 [1 favorite]


You think we'll ever see any of the surveillance footage? Either of Dzhokhar at the bombing site dropping his bag and walking way, or of the death of the police officer? I'm curious to see footage of both and I think such a release would at least partly help dispel conspiracy theories; at the same time, it's not really necessary for the public to see it, and may just be upsetting to the victims' families.
posted by (Arsenio) Hall and (Warren) Oates at 10:17 AM on April 25, 2013 [1 favorite]


Sorry, here is the NYC link.
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 10:17 AM on April 25, 2013


Arsenio, I think out of respect for the victims' families, those videos will not be made public.
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 10:19 AM on April 25, 2013 [2 favorites]


Based on nothing in particular, I've wondered if Dzhokhar used the SUV to run over Tamerlan in an attempt to set off the vest bomb.

It seems far more likely that it was simply the result of panic or desperation to get away, but the amount of cognitive dissonance in that young man's brain must be deafening. I wonder if he knows he killed his brother.


From these photos it seems pretty plausible that Dzhokhar was just trying to get away by driving straight through the police roadblock. Tamerlan was already on the ground in the middle of the street halfway between the SUV and the roadblock, so running him over accidentally could easily have happened.
posted by burnmp3s at 10:20 AM on April 25, 2013 [4 favorites]


I keep expecting to see the term "slacker terrorists" in the media. I'll cringe when I do, because it assumes we understand more about their motives than we do, and it trivializes the bad they've done. But otherwise, it seems to fit.

I guess it's better than some term that would make it seem that all Muslims do things like this, or that they did this for reasons any decent person would find legitimate.

But yeah I agree.
posted by sweetkid at 10:20 AM on April 25, 2013 [1 favorite]


Well, took care of that bit of idle speculation, thanks - though it was less conspiracy theory than trying to grasp a mindset.

No worries, I didn’t think you were putting forward a conspiracy theory. Just pointing out that it’s little misreported details like that — later disproven — that form the basis of conspiracy theorists’ collective knowledge of “proven” points that can no longer be refuted with logic.
posted by stopgap at 10:20 AM on April 25, 2013


I wouldn’t be surprised if some of the surveillance footage comes out during a trial, assuming there’s no guilty plea.
posted by stopgap at 10:22 AM on April 25, 2013 [1 favorite]


So, yeah, grief is weird.

No it's not. Those are her two boys - she remembers when she was their whole world, responsible for all of their joys and agonies. It's not for us to ask her to see them as they were at their end - that is far too cruel a demand for a woman who probably does not deserve it.
posted by Slap*Happy at 10:23 AM on April 25, 2013 [9 favorites]



I wouldn’t be surprised if some of the surveillance footage comes out during a trial, assuming there’s no guilty plea.


why would you assume that? not snarky, curious. It seems like Dzhokhar is cooperating and I for one would not like there to be a big splashy trial.
posted by sweetkid at 10:39 AM on April 25, 2013 [2 favorites]


If the CNN link provided by Rhomboid is accurate, Zubeidat Tsarnaev cannot return to the US to see her son. She has charges for shoplifting and property damage still unresolved.

There must be some way of dropping those charges.
A little kindness wouldn't go astray.
posted by de at 10:48 AM on April 25, 2013 [2 favorites]


Officials: Suspect stopped talking after Miranda

I suspect this is mainly because he also got access to counsel at the same hearing, and the PD had to have said, "Hi, I'm your attorney. Shut up, now."
posted by FelliniBlank at 10:50 AM on April 25, 2013 [9 favorites]


Apparently his public defender is one of the very best in New England.
posted by sweetkid at 10:54 AM on April 25, 2013 [1 favorite]


If the CNN link provided by Rhomboid is accurate, Zubeidat Tsarnaev cannot return to the US to see her son. She has charges for shoplifting and property damage still unresolved.

You DO NOT fuck with the Natick Mall.
posted by bondcliff at 10:55 AM on April 25, 2013 [1 favorite]


why would you assume that?

I don't assume there won't be a guilty plea; it seems more likely to me too, especially if the plea is for life in prison rather than a possible death penalty. But if there is a trial, I think the videos will be introduced and shown, regardless of any concerns of or for the victims' families. It might also be possible that the video could be shown to the jury but not made public, but I'm not familiar enough with criminal procedure to say.
posted by stopgap at 10:57 AM on April 25, 2013


From these photos it seems pretty plausible that Dzhokhar was just trying to get away by driving straight through the police roadblock.

Wow, I didn't realize someone had gotten photos of the actual shootout taking place. Amazing pictures.
posted by Atom Eyes at 11:21 AM on April 25, 2013


Mayor Bloomberg and Police Commissioner Kelley have just finished a presser saying that the FBI informed them that NYC was next. The brothers discussed setting off bombs in Times Sq.
posted by TWinbrook8 at 11:22 AM on April 25, 2013




When did "presser" become a term?
posted by ChurchHatesTucker at 11:57 AM on April 25, 2013 [7 favorites]


dunno but it's in Merriam-Webster
posted by sweetkid at 12:03 PM on April 25, 2013 [1 favorite]


Concerning their mother, it should be borne in mind that there are very strong incentives for denying any connection to terrorism or radical Islam, moreso if you are Ingush, Chechen or from Dagestan. You could well find yourself a social outcast as nobody wants the authorities breathing down their neck due to association. People still disappear in the North Caucasus.
posted by Jehan at 12:04 PM on April 25, 2013 [1 favorite]


When did "presser" become a term?

I think it must have been around the time that every presser had to include at least one utterance of the phrase "Make no mistake".
posted by seemoreglass at 12:16 PM on April 25, 2013 [4 favorites]




I have no proof, but I always thought "presser" was made popular by Variety, which has always had a history of punchy headlines.
posted by mudpuppie at 12:21 PM on April 25, 2013




When did "presser" become a term?

It may be older in some locations but it hasn't been common parlance, even in the press, until sometime within the last 10 years.
posted by Miko at 12:40 PM on April 25, 2013


Boston Hospitals And Insurers Will Help Ease The Bombing Victims’ Medical Costs

That's great, but it is insane that it takes being part of terrorist attack to possibly get more reasonable terms for medical care cost.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 12:45 PM on April 25, 2013 [8 favorites]




Re: PResser - this makes total sense, as the media is just chock-full of creeping Anglicisms, more and more since cable news and internet.

It's an English term like "preggers" and such that has jumped the pond.
Many English journalists and newspaper people have migrated to the U.S.
Media over the last few decades and they brought their lingo with them.

posted by Miko at 12:47 PM on April 25, 2013


When did "presser" become a term?

I want to say mid-to-late '90s. I have dim memories of hearing it during the Clinton years. "Presser" appears here in David Stephenson's How to Succeed in Newspaper Journalism, published in '98.
posted by octobersurprise at 12:53 PM on April 25, 2013 [1 favorite]


...which was published in the UK.

It's a lot newer in the US. I admit I only became conscious of it since about the last election cycle. It definitely wasn't common in the news business in the US until at least the early 00s, if not later.
posted by Miko at 12:56 PM on April 25, 2013


I really really hope his sources are inaccurate. Cause if any of that is right, I don't like it. No sir, I do not.
posted by St. Alia of the Bunnies at 1:09 PM on April 25, 2013


As a couple datapoints:

- the first appearance on mefi is 2005, with a few more that year as well as a few uses in the next three. (A 2006 post uses it as well, quoting Joe Scarborough.) It picks up more steam on the site in 2009; somewhere upward of 100 of the attested 150 uses on the site are since the start of that year. (On Ask Metafilter, people basically only talk about presser feet for sewing or music-duplication vinyl pressers.)

- a really quick and dirty search through the Talking Points Memo archives suggests that Josh et al started using it regularly some time in 2009 as well.

That's hardly a thorough survey, but as an early nod to the notion that "presser" took off in American political discussion in the wake of the 2008 election cycle it's not bad.
posted by cortex at 1:11 PM on April 25, 2013 [2 favorites]


I really really hope his sources are inaccurate. Cause if any of that is right, I don't like it. No sir, I do not.

St. Alia, can you sum that up? I'm not going to watch a Rick Joyner sermon.
posted by (Arsenio) Hall and (Warren) Oates at 1:13 PM on April 25, 2013 [9 favorites]


Alyssa Rosenberg: The Love For Ruslan Tsarni, And The Importance of Television Readiness:
But Tsarni’s stood out as a flexible mass culture phenomenon, someone about whom you can make jokes about him getting a reality show, or to whom you can write a compassionate letter, I suspect, for two reasons. First, he appeared about a ready for the cameras as you could possibly be after finding out that your estranged nephews were suspected in a malicious attack that had killed three people and horribly maimed many others. His initial statement hit all the points he needed to make, reaffirming his love for America, telling Dzhokhar to turn himself in, and perhaps most importantly, suggesting his nephews were “losers” rather than criminal masterminds, a statement that both was an unequivocal judgement on them, and one that—accurately, as it seemed to be turning out—restored the proper scale to the situation, assessing them as alienated and deadly, but independent actors. If people want to be compassionate rather than bigoted during an event that stirs up old fears, and old memories of overreaction, Tsarni gave the American public someone to grab onto, someone to console other than the Tsarnaevs’ parents, who seem to believe their sons were set up, or Dzhokhar’s friends, whose confusion and upset seem absolutely genuine, but is difficult to sympathize with from a great emotional remove. Whether he knew it or not, he turned in a perfect television performance, and picked the perfect role.
posted by tonycpsu at 1:16 PM on April 25, 2013 [2 favorites]


If "presser" for "press conference" bugs you like it does me, just wait until "spox" for "spokesperson" starts showing up. It's already common on TalkingPointsMemo. Ick.
posted by benito.strauss at 1:16 PM on April 25, 2013 [4 favorites]


Well, he is claiming that we aren't able to track terrorist cells anymore, and goes into detail that apparently his sources gave him. And he has them. (I don't doubt that because my own megachurch pastor has similar sources-living in NC has its perks.) Very little actual churchy stuff so far and I am almost through the whole video.
posted by St. Alia of the Bunnies at 1:17 PM on April 25, 2013


I am fairly certain Rick Joyner has no access to those kind of sources.
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 1:19 PM on April 25, 2013 [5 favorites]


That's an interesting theory to test once we're attacked by a terrorist cell instead of a couple of brothers looking up stuff online. Unless his point is that there are no terrorist cells anymore, and it's lone wolves like these guys that we have to worry about. Which, okay, great job, join the club of everyone else saying that.
posted by (Arsenio) Hall and (Warren) Oates at 1:20 PM on April 25, 2013


I really really hope his sources are inaccurate. Cause if any of that is right, I don't like it. No sir, I do not.

Personally, I like it a lot less if it's a load of bullshit. And I'll bet dollars to donuts that it is.
posted by Sys Rq at 1:22 PM on April 25, 2013


Well given that just this week the RCMP (working in conjunction with the FBI/etc) arrested two guys who are accused of being part of a terror cell (controlled by Iranian Al-Qaida, no less!!!!!!!), and that they'd been tracked for about a year prior to the arrest*, I feel as if we still can track cells.

*they were arrested right as the House of Commons was debating an anti-terrorism bill, which is causing some concern about political influence. True or not, the tracking could have safely continued for a while
posted by Lemurrhea at 1:26 PM on April 25, 2013 [1 favorite]


C'mon, Alia, you know that's a pretty lousy way to contribute to a thread. Practically no-one is going to bother to watch the whole video, and having you copy it into the thread bit-by-bit won't work very well either.

Can I suggest that someone either find a better link for the information, or else we drop it as a derail?
posted by benito.strauss at 1:26 PM on April 25, 2013 [4 favorites]


I would feel better if someone could bite the bullet, listen, and explain WHY it is bs. Which is kinda why I brought it here, to be frank. Joyner is a little bit different from your average rightwing preacher-just let me leave it at that.
posted by St. Alia of the Bunnies at 1:27 PM on April 25, 2013


There should be a follow up transcript or bulletin, and when it pops up I can copy and paste and or link the relevant bits if you like. And again, no one should have to listen to the whole thing for the relevant bits if you would rather not wait.
posted by St. Alia of the Bunnies at 1:28 PM on April 25, 2013 [1 favorite]


I am not 100% sure why the author of Overcoming Witchcraft is a reliable source on matters of national security, but that's probably why I'm neither.
posted by shakespeherian at 1:36 PM on April 25, 2013 [21 favorites]


Joyner is a little bit different from your average rightwing preacher-just let me leave it at that.

I don't know about that, but his bit about "sensitivity training is just the Muslim Brotherhood taking control of the government!!!" sounds pretty much par for the course in terms of average rightwing uncles.

Safe to ignore.
posted by Sys Rq at 1:38 PM on April 25, 2013 [4 favorites]


I really really hope his sources are inaccurate. Cause if any of that is right, I don't like it. No sir, I do not.

I don't like Rick Joyner. No sir. I do not.
posted by lampshade at 1:38 PM on April 25, 2013 [4 favorites]


I am not 100% sure why the author of Overcoming Witchcraft is a reliable source on matters of national security, but that's probably why I'm neither.

Spoken like someone who doesn't believe the gravest threat to our nation's security is witches.
posted by Bulgaroktonos at 1:45 PM on April 25, 2013 [12 favorites]


Mod note: Yeah, let's not get derailed into a discussion of Joyner's credibility; link is there for the curious, otherwise fine to move on.
posted by LobsterMitten (staff) at 1:45 PM on April 25, 2013 [1 favorite]




But ... the brothers were brought over with their parents, right? So no Muslim immigrant can bring their kids with them? Or what?
posted by desjardins at 2:32 PM on April 25, 2013


They could target it, so the anti-Muslim-student thing only applies if you're Indian or Czech.
posted by Joe in Australia at 2:39 PM on April 25, 2013 [4 favorites]


They could target it, so the anti-Muslim-student thing only applies if you're Indian or Czech.

What?
posted by sweetkid at 2:41 PM on April 25, 2013 [2 favorites]


I think a lot of the right-wing preachers in our society are envious of all the social prestige and political power Imams and clerics in Islamic societies get and are opportunistically trying to use Islamophobia as a lever to push for people to embrace more dogmatic, radical and militant forms of Christian faith in our country.

If we want to protect our way of life, to the extent we have such a thing, the last way to do that is to become more like our enemies--yet that seems to be what so many of these folks are none-too-subtlely pining for with all this blasphemous soldiers for Christ crap.
posted by saulgoodman at 2:57 PM on April 25, 2013 [2 favorites]


I think he's being sarcastic.
posted by nangar at 2:57 PM on April 25, 2013


Joe in Australia was likely referencing this statement (and the stupidity which prompted it.)
posted by ChurchHatesTucker at 3:01 PM on April 25, 2013


There are still Muslims in India
posted by Ivan Fyodorovich at 3:07 PM on April 25, 2013


I know, but it is predomiantnly Hindu and Sikh.

A question I do have: how did reddit and 4chan get all the pictures? Did people go there and post them or did the Reditos and /b/ go out searching flickr and Imgur?
posted by marienbad at 4:19 PM on April 25, 2013


If I am reading it correctly, it is a well-done dual-joke. (1) India is funny because many Indians are Muslim, but ostensibly it is Indian immigrants who are among the most coveted. (2) Czech-republic != Chechnya, duh Americans.
posted by rosswald at 4:22 PM on April 25, 2013




The latest pretzel logic making the rounds on facebook: "We are told not to judge Muslims by the actions of a few. I suggest we give millions of responsible gun owners that same courtesy."

Because "bomb them back to the stone age" is equivalent to "feel free to browse the magazines while we wait a few minutes for your background check results."
posted by headnsouth at 4:39 PM on April 25, 2013 [3 favorites]


at which point the police asked everyone in the house to come to the door so they could make sure everyone was safe and the they moved on without entering the house,

I have seen this explanation several times and I don't understand how it could work. They don't know how many people are supposed to be in any given house, so how would they know everyone had come to the door?
posted by headnsouth at 4:48 PM on April 25, 2013 [2 favorites]


I have seen this explanation several times and I don't understand how it could work. They don't know how many people are supposed to be in any given house, so how would they know everyone had come to the door?

Maybe it's like that old Christmas carollers B'n'E trope: Once they've got everyone distracted at the front door, a second guy busts in through the back and does a full sweep.

It could happen!
posted by Sys Rq at 4:58 PM on April 25, 2013


Maybe they don't have to know? It seems like one of those situations that goes pretty smoothly if you're just at home with whomever and not being held hostage or are harboring criminals. Otherwise that whole exchange just falls apart at the very asking.
posted by iamkimiam at 4:58 PM on April 25, 2013 [1 favorite]


"Otherwise that whole exchange just falls apart at the very asking."

Right. I think that's the reasoning. We can imagine (as I did in this thread) Tsarnaev hidden-away, holding one person at gunpoint, while others answer the door, but of all possibilities that wasn't probable and, if it did happen, that law enforcement wouldn't discern that something was wrong, was also not probable. So a pretty unlikely scenario weighed against all the issues associated with forcing their way into houses without warrants.
posted by Ivan Fyodorovich at 5:05 PM on April 25, 2013


A question I do have: how did reddit and 4chan get all the pictures? Did people go there and post them or did the Reditos and /b/ go out searching flickr and Imgur?

From my reading of some of the reddit threads, they searched Flickr for pictures tagged with "Boston marathon" and Twitter for pictures geotagged with the right time/place.
posted by desjardins at 5:13 PM on April 25, 2013


There was also a some dredging of runners' forums etc.
posted by ChurchHatesTucker at 5:20 PM on April 25, 2013


#FreeJahar: When Conspiracy Theorists and One Direction Fans Collide

I don't mean any disrespect to the victims or Boston residents, but this stuff is fascinating to me. I remember some similar stuff happening pre-Internet with Jeffrey Dahmer (I was 16 when he was arrested). He was also a reasonably attractive dude. I live in Milwaukee, so his trial was a Big Fucking Deal for months. I'm positive there would have been Tumblrs dedicated to him if that happened nowadays. It's like a "safe" outlet for transgression.
posted by desjardins at 5:27 PM on April 25, 2013




Dzhokhar does the robot - Metafilter thread
posted by rosswald at 5:48 PM on April 25, 2013


Port Authority currently being evac'ed on a bomb threat.
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 5:59 PM on April 25, 2013 [1 favorite]


Ugh, was really upset to hear about Tripathi's body being found. What a horrible ringer for his family to go through these past weeks.
posted by threeants at 5:59 PM on April 25, 2013 [6 favorites]


Port Authority currently being evac'ed on a bomb threat.

Yeah, maybe having a "presser" about an already averted threat isn't the best idea.
posted by ChurchHatesTucker at 6:02 PM on April 25, 2013


I was on a phone call with a partner ad agency today and someone said "I know this client likes to drop bombs like this and then leave" meaning a short deadline and I was like...ugh.
posted by sweetkid at 6:09 PM on April 25, 2013


Mod note: axed the derail on whether or not India is a muslim country, carry on
posted by mathowie (staff) at 6:34 PM on April 25, 2013 [1 favorite]


I'm sorry for sparking the derail about India.

The suggestion that banning Muslim students is an appropriate reaction to the bombing is so thoroughly stupid that I could only process is by mocking it. When I said that they should restrict the ban to Indians and Czechs I meant to refer to Reddit's theory that the bomber was an Indian student, as well as the misapprehension that "Chechen" means "someone from the Czech Republic".

I have nothing but respect for India, the Czech Republic, and all other Asian countries.
What?
OK, I'll stop now.

posted by Joe in Australia at 6:43 PM on April 25, 2013 [3 favorites]


Using Wikipedia - India - 13.4% Muslim, France - 5-10% Muslim, USA - .08-1.5% Muslim
posted by rosswald at 6:43 PM on April 25, 2013 [1 favorite]


Oh, and also probably relevant - Russia - 6-14% Muslim
posted by rosswald at 6:45 PM on April 25, 2013 [2 favorites]


yea, my comments were marked part of the derail, but my point was that though there is a certain percentage of Muslims in India, it doesn't mean that the the vast majority of Indians see their country as Muslim, and honestly they would be bewildered to learn that Americans see it that way.

There is a huge history behind why that is.
posted by sweetkid at 6:48 PM on April 25, 2013 [1 favorite]




The Boston Globe's interview with the carjacked driver. Scary.

I took absolutely nothing from that article. The last two sentences were just sickening. I feel tricked!
posted by de at 8:35 PM on April 25, 2013


That story was absolutely riveting. I can't even imagine. What a cool head that guy had. It's surreal, the interactions.
posted by Miko at 8:43 PM on April 25, 2013 [3 favorites]


Wow, good for him for thinking on his feet. I hope he takes care of himself and seeks out mental health professionals if he needs it. It's a really traumatic event and I'd hate for there to be yet another victim.
posted by Phire at 9:02 PM on April 25, 2013 [4 favorites]


Who will get the interview with briefly detained Naked Guy?

p.s. I thought the carjacked driver interview was great.
posted by maggieb at 9:05 PM on April 25, 2013 [1 favorite]


and seeks out mental health professionals if he needs it.

Yes!

The story failed to acknowledge the depth of the harm done to Danny and his immediate future, his fear, his terror, and how he now necessarily relives that, being essentially a part of the case and a celebrity of sorts.

It was rendered totally cheapening and shallow by the last two tricked-ya! sentences.

Relaxing back into a living room, picking up where he left off, telephoning his dream girl ... what PTSD?
posted by de at 9:06 PM on April 25, 2013 [1 favorite]


de, I didn't read it like that. To me it was more of a life's too short; don't waste a moment going after your dreams message.
posted by maggieb at 9:08 PM on April 25, 2013 [4 favorites]


What If the Tsarnaevs Had Been the “Boston Shooters”?

"Set off in a public space a couple of crude, homemade bombs that you appear to have made using a recipe on the Web, and the state will make you Public Enemy Number One. To ensure you are caught and punished, there are virtually no lengths to which the authorities won’t go. They’ll assemble a multi-agency task force overnight, calling on some of the enormous investments in hardware, intelligence, and manpower that have been made since 9/11. They’ll haul in anybody who might be remotely connected to the crime scene, and, if necessary, shut down an entire city. Once you’re caught, they’ll interview you in your hospital bed without reading you your legal rights and then charge you with using W.M.D.s. If you weren’t born in this country, there will even be talk about changing the immigration laws.

If you systematically shoot a classroom full of defenseless six-year-olds and blow off your own head, things proceed rather differently. To be sure, you, or your memory, will be hated and vilified. But the political system, in hock to the N.R.A., will classify you as a nut whose deadly actions have few or no policy implications. "

posted by suedehead at 9:10 PM on April 25, 2013 [19 favorites]


Just archiving all of the scanner feed audio for my own purposes, and I thought I would note that the original reports had the MIT officer's weapon as missing.
posted by rollbiz at 10:02 PM on April 25, 2013 [1 favorite]


Somewhere in between being a heartless pyschopath who acted like a nice kid his entire life as a ruse, and a witless accomplice to a horrible crime, there is another possibility -- a depressed and possibly suicidal teenager abandoned by his parents, failing at school, and doing a lot of drugs who simply gave up on life and agreed to help out his brother because why the fuck not.

I keep thinking of this kid and trying to understand some part of him, and getting stuck on the fact that he ran over his brother, dragging his body while he was still alive. On top of everything else he was responsible for, that was just deeply fucked up, like something from a Coen brothers movie. Panic, terror, whatever, he ran down his brother and drove off without him. Some people upthread suggested he didn't see his brother in the street (?)--but he sure as hell knew when he hit him. Does he have love for or loyalty to anyone?

I'm not trying to suggest that killing his brother was worse in effect than killing the innocent people at the marathon, far from it. But it seems significant in terms of the kinds of bonds he had with other human beings, or whether he had any at all.
posted by torticat at 10:04 PM on April 25, 2013


Three or four times now they've referred to MIt Officer Collier's missing weapon.

Not trying to strike up conspiracies or anything, I just apparently missed this all the first time around.
posted by rollbiz at 10:09 PM on April 25, 2013 [1 favorite]


One thing I've been meaning to mention ITT: The Onion has been on fire all this week, almost like it was after 9/11.

This What World Like Now

Area Man Growing A Little Tired Of Rushing Home To Hug Loved Ones

Authorities: Sadly, There Are Many People Who Could Have Done This

This Is A Tragedy—Does It Really Matter Exactly How Many People Died Or What Any Of The Details Are?
by New York Post Editor Col Allen


Every Family Member's Birthday Now Marred By Some Tragedy

The Onion's Tips For Finding A Suspected Terrorist

BREAKING: 'The Onion' In Kill Range Of Boston Bomber Suspect
Do We Take The Shot? Tweet Us Your Votes


Flag In Front Of Post Office Can Hardly Remember A Time It Wasn't Flying Half-Staff

Next Week's School Shooting Victims Thank Senate For Failing To Pass Gun Bill

Internet Comes Up With 8.5 Million Leads On Potential Boston Bombing Suspect

Jesus, This Week

FBI: 'You Know You’re Desperate When You’re Asking The American People For Help'

CNN Releases Photos Of 3 Obese Mexican Women Suspected In Boston Bombing

BREAKING: No News Breaking
BREAKING: Has The Word ‘Breaking’ Lost All Its Meaning?
BREAKING: Still Nothing
BREAKING: Can Anyone Ever Truly Know Anything? What Is The Truth?
BREAKING: Do You Think We’re Doing A Good Job?
BREAKING: We Might Be Doing A Bad Job

Guy On Roof Starting To Think He Might Get Away With It

Study: Majority Of Americans Not Informed Enough To Stereotype Chechens

Shocked Dzhokar Tsarnaev Always Thought Classmates Were Really Great Judges Of Character

I Guess When My Older Brother Said 'Let's Bomb The Boston Marathon,' I Should Have Said No
by Dzhokar Tsarnaev


Dzhokar Tsarnaev Posts Bail

Area Man Now Checks Inside Boat In Driveway Every Morning
posted by Rhaomi at 10:24 PM on April 25, 2013 [34 favorites]


"I keep thinking of this kid and trying to understand some part of him, and getting stuck on the fact that he ran over his brother, dragging his body while he was still alive."

You're not alone in ascribing significance to this, but it seems premature to me. He was (apparently) weaponless and panicked and a bazillion police officers were shooting at him on a darkened street while was racing toward their parked vehicles in an attempt to break through and escape. Whether he was even aware of his brother lying on the pavement is an open question.
posted by Ivan Fyodorovich at 10:30 PM on April 25, 2013 [7 favorites]


... and understanding him won't make an iota of difference. He's in an indefensible situation. I keep thinking of the man. When this kid is 39 who is he? Another thing I think about: if this kid were to express genuine regret and ask Boston's forgiveness ... everyone's forgiveness ...
posted by de at 10:36 PM on April 25, 2013 [1 favorite]


Miko: It was a foot in mouth moment for Bloomberg, but honestly I am not sure I can find anything terrible in what he actually said.

Yeah, I agree; I think the significance of that remark is getting blown out of proportion. Bloomberg mentioned the gun control debate specifically, and it's doubtful that many of the posters here would disagree that the way this country (i.e. the courts) interpret the 2nd amendment could use some rethinking. (See Jon Stewart, "God help us if the Muslims ever decide to form a well-regulated militia.")

Also regarding this, Sonika:
I haven't witnessed anything close to the hero worship that occurred after 9/11. ...the immediate response isn't hero worship for LE so much as "fuck that guy" towards Tsarnaev. Very, very different vibe from NYC.

Not sure what you mean by "hero worship" exactly but there were something like 60 police officers killed in the twin towers on top of 340 firefighters (I know it was around 400 total). I don't think the "vibe" was hero worship so much as sorrow and shock about these devastating losses. Certainly it wasn't hero worship in the sense of handing cops the keys to the city or whatever. Anyway, not to derail; I just didn't really understand that comment. (And I don't think in the end there's much use in comparing the two attacks or the cities' responses to them.)
posted by torticat at 11:02 PM on April 25, 2013 [3 favorites]


Methinks the Boston Globe author of the carjacked story has seen Fight Club. From the movie: "Tomorrow will be the most beautiful day of Raymond K. Hessel's life. His breakfast will taste better than any meal you and I have ever tasted. "
posted by Yowser at 11:03 PM on April 25, 2013 [1 favorite]




(See Jon Stewart, "God help us if the Muslims ever decide to form a well-regulated militia.")

Just wanted to amend my comment to say, see Jon Stewart in context obviously. I think that was already linked above, somewhere. I probably shouldn't have pulled out the one quote.
posted by torticat at 11:10 PM on April 25, 2013


I keep thinking of the man. When this kid is 39 who is he?

When this kid is 39 I expect he'll probably be almost two decades in the grave, unless he has some incredibly good lawyers.
posted by UbuRoivas at 11:49 PM on April 25, 2013


"When this kid is 39 I expect he'll probably be almost two decades in the grave, unless he has some incredibly good lawyers."

Not likely.

Timothy McVeigh was the first federal prisoner to be executed since 1963. That was in 2001, and that was six years after the Oklahoma City bombing. There have been only two other federal prisoners executed by the US government since McVeigh, making for a total of three since 1963. Meanwhile, there are about 50 or so prisoners on death row in US federal prisons.

I suppose that there are strong reasons to believe that the US government will ask for the death penalty and not plea bargain, and that a jury will find for execution, but even then a trial is unlikely to happen this year, and an execution will certainly not happen this year, or the year after that , or the year after that. It won't take "incredibly good lawyers" for him to avoid your prediction.
posted by Ivan Fyodorovich at 12:13 AM on April 26, 2013 [1 favorite]


I really feel you misread that piece, de. The entire article communicated to me his fears, and if the final two sentences are jarring, it is certainly the type of re-evaluation one makes after such an event.

At the very least, it's like seeing a guy escape sudden death, and insisting he buy a lottery ticket.

(The movie I thought of while reading it was Collateral.)
posted by dhartung at 12:24 AM on April 26, 2013 [4 favorites]


Wow, the Globe story on how the Chinese guy they carjacked got away is totally worth reading. Thanks for pointing it out.
posted by Andrew Galarneau at 4:45 AM on April 26, 2013


McVeigh was also a lot older, and it's quite something to execute a 19 year old who doesn't even appear to have taken the lead role in planning. What's the gain over a life sentence other than indicating that the Federal courts will still kill teenagers?
posted by jaduncan at 4:49 AM on April 26, 2013


Dzhokhar Tsarnaev has been transferred to a prison that specializes in medical care.
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 5:07 AM on April 26, 2013 [1 favorite]


I think about: if this kid were to express genuine regret and ask Boston's forgiveness ... everyone's forgiveness ...

He was so deceptive. I don't think this would mean much at this point, and in some quarters raise rancor. The trust is kind of blown.
posted by Miko at 5:51 AM on April 26, 2013


Firefighter Matt Patterson talks of caring for 7-year-old Jane Richard, who lost her brother (and her leg) in the second explosion.

Apparently Patterson initially mistook Jane for a boy, last week describing the rescue for the Boston Herald.
posted by torticat at 5:53 AM on April 26, 2013 [2 favorites]


I don't think this would mean much at this point

"Last week I was blowing you up but this week I totes feel bad. Awkward!"

Yeah, might not go well.
posted by jaduncan at 5:54 AM on April 26, 2013 [2 favorites]


10 years after his conviction, DC sniper Lee Boyd Malvo gave an interview in which he expressed remorse for his actions. In spite of time passing, a widely-held belief that he had been a victim of the older pseudo-Muslim John Allan Mohammed, and the apparent sincerity of his remorse, there was a lot of backlash against him and even against the Post for giving him an audience.

Even so, if there's a way to do an apology "right," I think that's the way. It had no bearing on his sentence, there were no book/movie deals in the works, and it wasn't about him. In the moment it was salt in open wounds, but over time it's possible that it can help victims find some peace and even help would-be criminals recognize that there's nothing honorable about what they're caught up in.

Like Malvo, this bomber#2 isn't going out in a blaze of glory, he's going to be in prison for his remaining days.
posted by headnsouth at 6:42 AM on April 26, 2013 [3 favorites]


Another thing I think about: if this kid were to express genuine regret and ask Boston's forgiveness ... everyone's forgiveness ...

It would the nail in the coffin of marking him as insane. He place bombs to kill people, watched it go off and then went to a party later.

It's way too soon to be asking for forgiveness and it'll be up to the individual whether they wish to give it.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 6:58 AM on April 26, 2013


Ivan Fyodorovich: "It won't take "incredibly good lawyers" for him to avoid your prediction."

Unless he is kept in solitary permanently, I would not be surprised if fellow prisoners took the opportunity to execute some jailhouse rough justice, a la Dahmer.
posted by Chrysostom at 7:52 AM on April 26, 2013


doesn't even appear to have taken the lead role in planning
Is there any actual evidence of this, or is it just a guess based on the fact that he's the younger?
posted by Flunkie at 8:50 AM on April 26, 2013


The actual evidence is Johar's statements during questioning. This is pretty flimsy because 1) his ability to communicate is limited, 2) we have only have the the interpretation of the statements by "sources familiar with the investigation" rather than any sort of direct quote (further filtered by the media), and 3) he has good reason to lie. But still it makes a lot of sense not just because he is younger, but because of what we know of his personality compared to what we know of his brother's.
posted by 0 at 9:03 AM on April 26, 2013 [1 favorite]


Yeah, it seems like there are only two possibilities based on what little we've learned about them so far. One: Jahar is mildly or moderately sociopathic, blindly faithful to his brother, and has astonishingly terrible impulse control. Or two: he is severely sociopathic and put up an American Psycho–style façade of normalcy for years while subtly manipulating his troubled older brother and plotting mayhem. I think option one is far more likely. Teenagers can think and do a lot of very stupid, inexcusable things without being “insane,” so I think that’s too far to speculate on right now.
posted by stopgap at 9:43 AM on April 26, 2013 [3 favorites]


Unless he is kept in solitary permanently

I'm going to go out on a limb here and call the likely outcomes as death or Supermax.
posted by jaduncan at 9:53 AM on April 26, 2013 [3 favorites]


or cake?
posted by Rhomboid at 10:10 AM on April 26, 2013 [5 favorites]


No, even supermax prisons won't use the GLADOS protocol for exercising.
posted by jaduncan at 10:11 AM on April 26, 2013


I'm kind of surprised nobody has mentioned the historical connection between Islam, pot-smoking and mass-murder.

Extremely tenuous and on academically thin ground obviously, but I figured some drug-warrior/islamophobe would have gone there by now.
posted by empath at 11:25 AM on April 26, 2013 [1 favorite]




No cake. Federal sentencing guidelines don't have a cake option. The would be one hell of a motion for downward departure though.
posted by Dr. Zira at 11:53 AM on April 26, 2013 [1 favorite]


Nothing is True, Everything is Permissible

...at Zombo.com
posted by desjardins at 12:20 PM on April 26, 2013 [9 favorites]


Mother Jones: How the FBI in Boston May Have Pursued the Wrong Terrorist

Democracy Now: Did FBI Focus on Controversial Stings Distract from Pursuit of Tsarnaev Before Boston Attacks?
posted by homunculus at 12:38 PM on April 26, 2013


"Democracy Now: Did FBI Focus on Controversial Stings Distract from Pursuit of Tsarnaev Before Boston Attacks?"

I really don't quite understand these stings. I think the theory is that you catch these folk early, and in doing the sting you are better able to know what they're doing, see how far they're willing to go, hamstring them, and then better able to prosecute them later.

Which makes sense, assuming that you are identifying most/all of those who are potential terrorists. But if you're not, then you're likely skewing your results to the least cautious, the most psychologically ill, many of whom would be incompetent and unsuccessful anyway, and many of whom would never have done any of the things they do without encouragement and tangible support from law enforcement. Meanwhile, the more competent terrorists are happy that the FBI puts so much effort into stings against people who can barely tie their own shoes.

But we're not seeing the competent terrorists. So either the FBI actually is getting most of them with these operations, or some other agency is getting them (or disrupting them), or the competent terrorists have for some reason themselves not chosen to strike.

I think the answer is the second. The competent terrorists are actual terrorists who are part of networks and therefore are subject to the scrutiny of the intelligence services, worldwide. That's via electronic intercepts, intelligence assets on the ground, all that. I think that this is doing 95% of the work of preventing organized, competent terrorist attacks.

And that's mostly not the FBI. But the FBI has to do something! They are getting a big share of the anti-terrorism funding pie. They need something to do and they need tangible results. So what they do is find crazy people who likely wouldn't be a threat to anyone and then encourage them to attempt to become actual terrorists, providing guidance and resources, and then arrest them.

You can say, sure, they don't have time to keep tabs on everyone who comes to their attention like the Tsarnaevs did. And there's a lot of people dabbling in some form of religious extremism and traveling to other countries and so I find that argument convincing. Except that they get three billion dollars a year earmarked for anti-terrorism measures and I can't help but wonder how many individual surveillances and follow-ups these elaborate sting operations would fund. But they'd only catch one real terrorist for every five nutjobs they currently catch who wouldn't have done anything without their encouragement. So they prefer the five over the one because there's nothing more important to law enforcement than justifying its budget, especially the feds when it also implicitly involves turf wars.

I guess I do understand these stings, after all.
posted by Ivan Fyodorovich at 1:16 PM on April 26, 2013 [3 favorites]


Previously.
posted by homunculus at 1:39 PM on April 26, 2013


Deadspin (?!) has posted the most complete and detailed timeline of the manhunt/chase/shoot out /shit show.
posted by wensink at 1:52 PM on April 26, 2013 [5 favorites]


Another weird thing about this is that most master criminals, once pictures have been circulated of them TOGETHER as suspects, they would seperate. They spent the days immediately following the bombing seperately, but then reunited to go to New York? Like that would not make them stand out more?


No one knew what Tamerlan looked like at first, it was his brother that placed a bomb next to children, on camera, with his hat backwards, without sunglasses. Tamerlan could have done a lot of damage on his own and not many people would see his face and immediately recognize him, at least that first night. Thank goodness for stupidity.
posted by readery at 2:05 PM on April 26, 2013 [2 favorites]


There are a lot of ways to justify the stings (or not), Ivan, but I think strategically the idea is presenting a deterrent to at least the midrange of competent terrorists (the most competent will have operational security so tight it would admit no informants). Whether this has been the case is certainly open to debate.

Unless he is kept in solitary permanently

He almost absolutely will be -- and I can tell you exactly where, Unit D, the so-called Bomber's Row, at Florence ADX. Some of those prisoners have earned privileges that have upgraded their status slightly but they will never be unsupervised and never socialize with the general prison population. There is at least one known Supermax murder, but it was in a so-called "step down" area where prisoners are proving they are capable of being moved to an even less secure prison environment, something I doubt will ever be available to Tsarnaev.
posted by dhartung at 2:09 PM on April 26, 2013 [3 favorites]




Here's the 30 minutes of scanner audio beginning with the end of the car chase into East Watertown.
posted by rollbiz at 11:06 PM on April 25 [4 favorites −] Favorite added! [!]


Thanks for posting this, rollbiz. It's remarkable how much incorrect information was passed along over the scanner as the story evolved.
posted by mudpuppie at 3:27 PM on April 26, 2013 [1 favorite]


Thank goodness for stupidity.

Right, we don't know if Dzhokhar was being stupid or wanted to get caught or some combination of the two.
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 4:15 PM on April 26, 2013


Bombers' Row sounds inhumane (and perpetually radicalising).

De-Radicalisation Is a Soft Approach to Combating Terrorism
De-radicalisation equally requires the involvement of academics, researchers, sociologists, anthropologists, the media and clergy. Those who think that the law-enforcement agencies will be able to eliminate this menace in isolation are living in a fool’s paradise.
If we're to survive this era of terrorism, soft options belong in Bombers' Row and as part of grassroots community services.

It wasn't only Tamerlan who came under CIA scrutiny in 2011 and consequently made the FBI's terrorist database. So did Zubeidat Tsarnaev, apparently. Given what is known about radicalisation, wouldn't you think Dzhokhar was a vulnerable family member in 2011? Wouldn't you think this family posed a non-trivial community risk? That's how it panned out. Maybe Homeland Security and its CRCL programme need re-evaluation as a result of the Tsarnaev brothers.

I'm a rehabilitation proponent; it's not that radical. People fail rehabilitation; and success doesn't lead to pardon, either.

Ivan, it's terrifying when we understand sting operations and their link to demonstrating performance and funding requirements under pressure, yet fail to completely fathom the (vulnerability and) radicalisation of teenagers when it happens.
posted by de at 6:11 AM on April 27, 2013 [1 favorite]




Williams-Sonoma Concedes Victory to Terrorists, Pulls Pressure Cookers From Shelves

In other news: Guns still available throughout the country.
posted by sour cream at 6:20 AM on April 27, 2013 [20 favorites]






That last article confirms that Dzhokhar smoked cigarettes in addition to pot. I guess it's possible that he was among the kids who used to come smoke on the front steps of my apartment building during lunch when I lived near his high school. I knew I should have told those kids to respect other people more.
posted by stopgap at 7:41 AM on April 27, 2013 [2 favorites]




Even if the defense manages to successfully suppress portions of the interrogation, the feds have already leaked the statement they alleged he made about joining his brother's plan only recently, so if it goes to trial, the jury pool is going to already know about it and it's going to be rolling around in their brains even if they can't consider it among the admissible evidence.

Another interesting thing is that some media reports mentioned that Dzhokar already confessed to the Danny, the man they carjacked. It sounds like those reports are inaccurate, because according to the article above in which Danny was interviewed, Dzhokar wasn't even in the car yet; it was Tamerlan who got into the car and said he was the one who did it, and according to Danny, he didn't say "we" he said "I."

So if the defense can get the hospital confession suppressed, and if Danny didn't hear the kid say anything to admit responsibility after he joined Tamerlan in the car (which the feds could introduce as a prior admission, which gets them around a hearsay objection), then the feds may not have a confession, or at least one they know about yet. That's not to say the feds won't have plenty of other evidence to make their case; it's just that a confession may not be one of those things, unless another confession turns up (which, given the stupidity of these suspects, is entirely possible).

If the pre-Mirandized confessions are ruled admissible, the fact that the suspect couldn't actually speak means the statements he made will, in theory, have been written down by the defendant. Generally, it's easier to get a suspect to talk than it is to write down a statement, but in this case, the feds didn't have that problem. This is significant because generally, police reports aren't admissible evidence; normally, an unwritten confession would have to be introduced through testimony of the officer who heard the confession. At least that minimizes the possibility of inconsistencies between what the officers remember the defendant saying and what the defendant actually said.
posted by Dr. Zira at 9:15 AM on April 27, 2013


Williams-Sonoma Concedes Victory to Terrorists, Pulls Pressure Cookers From Shelves

When I did a mouseover on that link I was astonished it wasn't the Onion.
posted by jaduncan at 9:18 AM on April 27, 2013 [8 favorites]


Another thing that's kind of a nitpicky thing: The media keeps reporting about how quiet he's been since he's been Mirandized, but what they don't mention is the fact that he was Mirandized at the arraignment, at the same time or after he was provided access to an attorney.

That's unusual, because normally, someone taken into custody is immediately read their rights, but until a suspect asserts his rights and says "I want an attorney and I refuse to speak any further until I've spoken to an attorney" they can still be questioned and many suspects will still talk. Cops know this, and know how to take advantage of that period after a suspect is Mirandized and before the suspect has asserted the right to stop talking and demands an attorney.

So it's not necessarily the reading of his rights at the arraignment that led to his silence; it could have been his attorney's advice. What this means, is that if they'd read him his rights earlier, it's entirely possible that the suspect would have continued to talk instead of asserting his right to stop talking and right to counsel.
posted by Dr. Zira at 9:30 AM on April 27, 2013


Williams-Sonoma Concedes Victory to Terrorists, Pulls Pressure Cookers From Shelves

When I did a mouseover on that link I was astonished it wasn't the Onion.


The pressure cookers can be made safe by simply not placing a large amount of gunpowder inside them.
posted by Artw at 9:38 AM on April 27, 2013 [13 favorites]


(Other containers that can be made dangerous by placing gunpowder inside of them include Every Container Ever.)
posted by Artw at 9:40 AM on April 27, 2013 [14 favorites]


the statements he made will, in theory, have been written down by the defendant.

Only a Tsarnaev brother ...
posted by de at 9:43 AM on April 27, 2013


I'm not a doctor or a lawyer or anything, but mightn't it be problematic if, when he was making all these statements, he was out of his gourd on painkillers?
posted by Sys Rq at 11:55 AM on April 27, 2013


I'm not a doctor or a lawyer or anything, but mightn't it be problematic if, when he was making all these statements, he was out of his gourd on painkillers?

You're clearly showing your medical ignorance, Sys Rq. The correct anatomical term is pumpkin.
posted by wensink at 12:13 PM on April 27, 2013 [8 favorites]


Before Bombs, a Battered American Dream [nyt] A profile of Tamerlan Tsarnaev
posted by (Arsenio) Hall and (Warren) Oates at 1:54 PM on April 27, 2013


sour cream: "Williams-Sonoma Concedes Victory to Terrorists, Pulls Pressure Cookers From Shelves

In other news: Guns still available throughout the country.
"

SHOW ME THE RIGHT TO PRESSURE COOKERS IN THE CONSTITUTION!
posted by symbioid at 2:17 PM on April 27, 2013 [1 favorite]


Yeah, if he was on painkillers the defense could certainly raise that issue; the flip side is that if he was denied painkillers to keep his brain clear while he was being interrogated, there could be a potential claim of coercion there as well.

There are a lot of really interesting legal issues here. CNN also reported something earlier about a search for his laptop in a local landfill; how did they know to search the landfill? If it was information derived from something during the hospital interrogation, that gets back to the discussion earlier in the thread about the Elstad issue and the extent to which the fruits of the poisonous tree doctrine would apply if they obtain any evidence derived from that interrogation.

symbioid: "SHOW ME THE RIGHT TO PRESSURE COOKERS IN THE CONSTITUTION!"

Fundamental penumbral rights. Delicious beef stew being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear innovative cooking pots shall not be infringed.
posted by Dr. Zira at 2:28 PM on April 27, 2013 [8 favorites]


Right, but it was 1791; "innovative cooking pots" meant nothing more than Dutch ovens. They certainly weren't talking about automatic appliances.
posted by Sys Rq at 2:34 PM on April 27, 2013 [5 favorites]


@symbioid: You're making tempeh in a teapot.
posted by wensink at 2:51 PM on April 27, 2013 [3 favorites]


You can have my pressure cooker when you can pry it from my fluffy, slightly burnt oven mitts.
posted by zombieflanders at 3:09 PM on April 27, 2013 [6 favorites]






I get the feeling that most of the boundary-pushing Miranda cases involve police trying to be Too Clever By Half. Yes, I totally get that they want to know if there are other bombs or co-conspirators out there, but I bet an attorney would have advised Tsarnaev to tell the police about things like that under some sort of deal, rather than risk either (a) more deaths consequent to him concealing information or (b) prosecutors making a deal with other conspirators they located on their own. Instead they spent sixteen hours questioning him, apparently found no other bombs or conspirators, and have possibly tainted any evidence about things he said before he was Miranda-ised.
posted by Joe in Australia at 3:57 PM on April 27, 2013


From the NYT: In 2011, the Russian security service cautioned the F.B.I., and later the C.I.A., that “since 2010” Mr. Tsarnaev had “changed drastically,” becoming “a follower of radical Islam.” The Russians said he was planning a trip to his homeland to connect with underground militant groups. An F.B.I. investigation turned up no ties to extremists, the bureau has said.

Oh, that doesn't look good.
posted by Joe in Australia at 4:01 PM on April 27, 2013 [3 favorites]


What I want to know is where the Russians got their info/suspicions about Tamerlan in the first place. Why did he come up on their radar in such a way that they flagged him to the FBI?
posted by FelliniBlank at 6:03 PM on April 27, 2013 [2 favorites]


Maybe Tamerlan (and possibly his mother) made contact with people Russia had on watch, for instance a bomb electronics specialist willing to impart skills.

Ties that blind? Family connections can be key in journey down terrorism path

In 16 hours of interrogation you'd expect the FBI had the wherewithal to ask after family members. Where's the law stand on warning that anything written down can be used to incriminate your mother (should that be the case)?
posted by de at 9:15 PM on April 27, 2013 [1 favorite]


FelliniBlank, the Russian authorities were wiretapping his mother in Dagestan. It's only been in the last couple of days that they revealed this to the FBI. I can't find out whether they suspected Tamerlan so put his mother under surveillance or if they were already investigating his mother and her associates and this led to their suspicion of Tamerlan.
posted by RichardP at 9:19 PM on April 27, 2013 [3 favorites]


This leads to interesting questions about admissible evidence when it comes to co-operative agencies in other countries and their use of methods that could be seen as contra-constitutional (to the US Constitution). I'm sure there's plenty established law on this, but how much of this kind of evidence would be admissible enough to the FBI to go far enough to obtain info on Tamerlan? If they couldn't turn anything up on their (theoretically) limited search (assuming, of course, constitutionality and whatever the fuck that's even worth these days), how much weight will the testimony of a foreign intelligence agency have and does it override the right of a US citizen? (Tamerlan was not a US citizen, however, is that correct? Only Dzokhar was?)
posted by symbioid at 10:52 PM on April 27, 2013


Personally I'm betting that Tsarnaev's 'mysterious trip to Russia' turns out to have been approximately as significant as Lee Harvey Oswald's.
posted by koeselitz at 11:20 PM on April 27, 2013


Well, whoa whoa whoa there. Don't confuse rules of evidence designed to control whether the government gets to lock you up with what the government can consider to e.g. bar your citizenship application or put you on a watch list. This information is shared as a matter of course and is not really subject to the laws and rules which would apply to a criminal trial. Nobody has a right to American citizenship so a denial is not something that can really be appealed other than procedurally.

Also, the mother is not accused of a crime nor likely to be. Asking questions about family members falls more under intelligence gathering than criminal investigation. That said, there is no fifth amendment protection for moms.
posted by dhartung at 11:24 PM on April 27, 2013 [1 favorite]


"Williams-Sonoma Concedes Victory to Terrorists, Pulls Pressure Cookers From Shelves

In other news: Guns still available throughout the country."


In other other news: Terrorists now forced to not drastically overpay for kitchen equipment.
posted by rollbiz at 11:52 PM on April 27, 2013 [4 favorites]


Nobody has a right to American citizenship

actually, unless I grossly misunderstand the 9/11 constitutional rollbacks, I'm pretty sure I do, in fact, have a right to American citizenship, by virtue of birth location.
posted by mwhybark at 1:18 AM on April 28, 2013 [12 favorites]


Personally I'm betting that Tsarnaev's 'mysterious trip to Russia' turns out to have been approximately as significant as Lee Harvey Oswald's.

January 2, 1962: LHO writes his mother that he and Marina expect to arrive in the U.S. in March.

January 5, 1962: LHO writes to the Embassy asking for a loan from the U.S. Government.

January 13, 1962: LHO writes to the International Rescue Committee asking for $800.

January 15, 1962: The Embassy tells LHO it needs proof that Marina will not become a ward of the state.

January 23, 1962: LHO replies to the Embassy, saying that his affidavit should be enough but contacts Marguerite the same day requesting that she file an affidavit.

January 24, 1962: The Embassy receives an affidavit from LHO for Marina, but tells LHO to obtain another one.

January 26, 1962: LHO writes to the International Rescue Committee again asking for $1,000.

January 30, 1962: LHO learns of his "Undesirable" discharge, which is incorrectly reported by his mother to be "Dishonorable".

January 30, 1962: He writes John Connally, former Secretary of the Navy, asking for help reversing the discharge.

February 1, 1962: LHO writes his mother rejecting her suggestion regarding raising money through a newspaper appeal.

Yes, I see a pattern.
posted by clavdivs at 7:30 AM on April 28, 2013 [1 favorite]


I just meant that Tsarnaev was in Russia to meet with agents of Richard Nixon, who was behind the whole conspiracy in the first place.
posted by koeselitz at 9:18 AM on April 28, 2013 [2 favorites]


This article is the most detailed account so far. Among other things, it provides a possible explanation for the injury to Dzhokhar's neck: Dzhokhar Tsarnaev may have injured himself in one of the blasts — he had what appeared to be shrapnel cuts on his neck and ear when he was captured.
posted by (Arsenio) Hall and (Warren) Oates at 9:50 AM on April 28, 2013 [8 favorites]


This article is the most detailed account so far.

"When Tamerlan ran out of ammunition, he threw his weapon at Pugliese, hitting him in the arm, Dupuis said."

A tactic learned at the Moe Howard Terror Camp, no doubt.
posted by wensink at 11:01 AM on April 28, 2013 [9 favorites]




wensink, beg to differ. I think this trope largely derives from the Hong Kong martial arts genre, particularly Jackie Chan's penchant for using anything and everything in his immediate environment as a weapon/shield/lever/ladder, and I saw it in a recent less memorable flick as well -- both guys were out and threw their guns at each other. I suppose if you hit someone in the face you might distract them long enough for you to grab something else or effect some sort of gymnastics that gets you out of immediate danger. But I don't know that it works too well when you're getting tackled by a bunch of guys next (then run over by your sidekick).
posted by dhartung at 2:58 PM on April 28, 2013


I think this trope largely derives from the Hong Kong martial arts genre,

There have been jokes about crooks throwing their empty guns at Superman at least since George Reeves was wearing the cape.
posted by Etrigan at 3:21 PM on April 28, 2013


I'm talking about the protagonists, though, no Krypton-powers involved. These guys were completely living out their own action movie, Badlands-style, which was my point.
I suppose some could see James Bond as a Superman stand-in, of course.
posted by dhartung at 3:38 PM on April 28, 2013


Internet finds out Uncle Ruslan was married to a CIA agent's daughter. Internet says: Let a thousand conspiracy theories bloom!
posted by tonycpsu at 3:58 PM on April 28, 2013


Russia caught bomb suspect on wiretap
Bombers’ mother spoke to her older son about the possibility of going to ‘Palestine’
WASHINGTON (AP) — Russian authorities secretly recorded a telephone conversation in 2011 in which one of the Boston bombing suspects vaguely discussed jihad with his mother, officials said Saturday, days after the US government finally received details about the call.

In another conversation, the mother of now-dead bombing suspect Tamerlan Tsarnaev was recorded talking to someone in southern Russia who is under FBI investigation in an unrelated case, officials said.

The conversations are significant because, had they been revealed earlier, they might have been enough evidence for the FBI to initiate a more thorough investigation of the Tsarnaev family.

As it was, Russian authorities told the FBI only that they had concerns that Tamerlan and his mother were religious extremists. With no additional information, the FBI conducted a limited inquiry and closed the case in June 2011.

posted by Joe in Australia at 5:57 PM on April 28, 2013 [3 favorites]




wensink, dhartung, Etrigan you forget simple domestic violence. Tamerlan had been throwing things at his wife since before they married. Plus he boxed and was well known for his nimble gymnastics in the ring, handstands, splits ... had he cartwheeled at Pugliese he could have taken his gun. Home honed skills. (He can't have been thinking.)



I read where the father isn't travelling to the US. He's too unwell. Odd. Would the parents be having visa problems? Maybe there's a risk of no return trip into Russia.

I also read where Tamerlan was caught without a passport after his last trip. He travelled to Russia, applied for a passport, but failed to wait on its issue. He returned to America and his application for citizenship stalled. Whatever passport he used for his last trip must have lapsed.

Anyway, he wasn't travelling to Palestine in a hurry.
posted by de at 10:21 PM on April 28, 2013


My source was one of the officers in the Watertown shootout. His point, that they demonstrated paramilitary training in largely evading 120 bullets shot their way by police, makes sense.
That's completely ridiculous. Just because something "makes sense" doesn't mean it's true. The other obvious explanation is that the police just didn't do a good job of shooting at them. (of course in a real war tons and tons of bullets are fired without hitting anything)
Among other things, it provides a possible explanation for the injury to Dzhokhar's neck: Dzhokhar Tsarnaev may have injured himself in one of the blasts — he had what appeared to be shrapnel cuts on his neck and ear when he was captured.
Except he was talking in the car trip with "Danny"
posted by delmoi at 11:56 AM on April 29, 2013


Except he was talking in the car trip with "Danny"

Yeah...? How exactly do you mean "except"? They carjacked "Danny," then they had the shootout with police where they were throwing IEDs.
posted by (Arsenio) Hall and (Warren) Oates at 12:01 PM on April 29, 2013




Backpack With Message "USA Bomb" Left At Muslim Residence

Goddammit, Woonsocket.
posted by The Great Big Mulp at 1:09 PM on April 29, 2013 [4 favorites]


From the USA Bomb link: On the day of Marathon, a stranger shoved a second-year Northeastern student speaking Arabic on the Boston subway so hard she fell to the ground. Two days later, an angry man punched a Muslim woman on the shoulder in Malden, Massachusetts and called her a "terrorist," as she was pushing her nine-month-old daughter.

Yay, more angry entitled men who feel they have the right to go out and hurt innocent strangers who are physically vulnerable compared to them, and feel like an epic hero doing it. I'm just surprised that guy hadn't costumed himself in military-grade body armor when he punched the mom and her 9 month old baby.

But noo, it's Muslims we have to worry about. Anything to not have to look in the mirror.
posted by cairdeas at 3:08 PM on April 29, 2013 [10 favorites]






More parallells with JFK: suspects on run but not yet caught kill a cop in a way that attracts all kinds of unwanted attention.
posted by telstar at 6:19 PM on April 29, 2013








Sarah Palin calls for invasion of Czech republic

A gas explosion ripped through a building containing offices and an art gallery in a historic district of central Prague on Monday morning, injuring 35 people and prompting evacuations of nearby buildings in the Czech capital, officials said.
posted by UbuRoivas at 8:17 PM on April 29, 2013




Tamerlan Tsarnaev had links to slain radical militants: Russian newspaper

One of whom (Nidal) was said to be involved in the twin bombs in Makhachkala, May 2012, killing 13 and injuring over 100. Tameran returned home June, 2012; Nidal was killed during a shoot out with the incorrigible Russians, May '12.

"Russian police in Makhachkala placed a district of the city under a special counter-terrorist regime during a search for the mastermind of a twin bomb attack on May 3" ... rings bells, but I don't think Nidal is named as the mastermind. He was a teenager.
posted by de at 11:23 PM on April 29, 2013


I had an earlier reply to de (speculative, decided it was too fighty, nothing personal) in which I wondered about his time in Russia -- but this new information about the crackdown and specific links to people he knew who ended up slain by Russian counterterrorism cops, makes me wonder. I thought Tamerlan's not picking up his Russian passport suggested a lackadaisicalness, but now I have to ask whether a) he felt the heat, b) he rejected the allegiance, or some combination. He may have avoided picking up the passport if he feared it was a pretext for an arrest, for example.

Boston attacks shouldn’t be pretext for Russian crackdown

Phase of moon is pretext for Russian crackdown....
posted by dhartung at 2:32 AM on April 30, 2013 [2 favorites]


Here's a Globe roundup and event timeline of the whole last few threads on this. Includes answer to my question "what about the naked guy".
posted by tilde at 5:26 AM on April 30, 2013 [2 favorites]




All of this sympathy stems of course from the storyline that coalesced early: a hapless genial pothead being coerced into killing by his sadistic older brother. As with such storylines, all evidence to the contrary gets suppressed.
Interesting piece from Rosin, glad she wrote it. I think it's an important thing to bring a critical eye to. I'm not sure she gets anywhere really insightful in this piece, but she's identifed a part of the discourse that is most bizarre.

And I had no idea there was "fan fiction" - I mean, that's sickening, but I suppose I should not be surprised.
posted by Miko at 7:10 AM on April 30, 2013 [1 favorite]


I think Rosin hit way too close to home with this line:

Maybe (the most depressing answer) this all stems from the fact that Dzhokhar is cute.

And it's true, he is a cute guy. When I think of teen killers who aren't physically attractive, the reaction to them couldn't be more different. Austin Sigg comes to mind - the 17 year old who murdered a child two years older than the one Dzhokhar murdered. No teen girls are writing fanfic about Austin Sigg, I've never heard any moms expressing any maternal sympathy for him. There's very little other than pure hate and loathing, for that guy.
posted by cairdeas at 7:23 AM on April 30, 2013 [4 favorites]


I'm with Miko, the idea of fan fiction is sickening, but I shouldn't be surprised either. This article that Rosin links to in the Slate article, adds an interesting perspective for me.

Teen girl crushing is less about the object of their obsessions, and more about creating a fictional character and narrative of their own desires, with a heaving helping of *I'm* so special and the only one who can understand him.

Sympathy isn't the right word for what I feel towards Dzhokhar. More like, profoundly sad that any human being would ever think that blowing up fellow human beings is an appropriate course of action.
posted by inertia at 7:51 AM on April 30, 2013 [2 favorites]


Optics are everything: cute murder gets more sympathy than ugly ones. Pandas more money then Baird Tapirs.
posted by edgeways at 8:06 AM on April 30, 2013


Yeah, we had the same reactions in this thread from Mefites who said it was such a shame as he was a good looking young man with his life ahead of him etc etc. Jesus, he is a psycho who murdered a kid in cold fucking blood, and then went about life as though nothing had happened, and tweeted "I'm a stress free kinda guy." Wash the blood off his hands? He didn't even notice it.

I mean, unless it is all a conspiracy and he is innocent, that is seriously fucked up. Could any of us handle a murder we had commited with such nonchalence?

Seriously, if johar had been the victim of siome ugly, bald middle-aged psycho dude, these same girls who have pro-johar tumblrs would be on twitter calling for his execution.
posted by marienbad at 8:28 AM on April 30, 2013 [6 favorites]


Question, is there a website/resource that debunks the debunkers? i.e. a Snopes for False Flag accusations?
posted by dhacker at 9:06 AM on April 30, 2013




hapless genial pothead being coerced into killing by his sadistic older brother

The problem with that narrative is that most HGPs and impressionable teens have functioning consciences, moral compasses, and limits beyond which they won't go even for a pal. Don't they? I get that adolescent brains (at least in this culture in this era) predictably exhibit limited impulse control and still-developing rational judgment ability, but Dzhokhar's level of, I dunno, amoral compartmentalized spinelessness, at best, has to be an outlier. I hope.
posted by FelliniBlank at 10:42 AM on April 30, 2013 [3 favorites]




Law, Facts, And Even Minimal Gestures Towards Research All Have Suspicious Muslim Connections

Great read.

I had no idea there was "fan fiction" - I mean, that's sickening, but I suppose I should not be surprised.

Why? Fantasy is OK, no? In similar cases, most commenters here would call it "healthy."
posted by mrgrimm at 11:11 AM on April 30, 2013


Maybe (the most depressing answer) this all stems from the fact that Dzhokhar is cute.

It would be more depressing if teenage girls had a fetish for violent crime?

Let teenage girls be teenage girls. They're not any more harmful than the media in general.

I've never heard any moms expressing any maternal sympathy for him.

Fwiw, I talk to a lot of mothers of young children (as I have young children), and no one has EVER said anything sympathetic about the boston bombers. I call shenanigans on:

"In the past week and a half I have not been to a school pickup, birthday, book party, or dinner where one of my mom friends has not said some version of “I feel sorry for that poor kid.”

Bullshit.
posted by mrgrimm at 11:15 AM on April 30, 2013


As the mother of perhaps *ahem* a nineteen year old hapless genial pothead, I struggle with this. I feel more empathy than I should. Although hapless, I can't imagine the amorality that allows one to place a bomb in a crowd of people.

I've been thinking it thru in relation to Sandy Hook. How much of the blame for the shooting was deflected from twenty year old Adam Lanza to his mother? In both cases the young perpetrators are mostly known thru pics in which they appear wide-eyed and feckless. It is a thing, but I can't quite put my finger on what it is.
posted by readery at 11:59 AM on April 30, 2013 [4 favorites]


My friends and I had a conversation in which we basically felt sorry for everyone involved, but it was a short convo and we didn't really get into it. This was like just that first weekend after, and the majority of our focus was on all the random. innocent brown kids who got hauled into it.
posted by sweetkid at 12:05 PM on April 30, 2013




Fwiw, I talk to a lot of mothers of young children (as I have young children), and no one has EVER said anything sympathetic about the boston bombers...Bullshit.

Unfortunately, I have been in several of those conversations. I am not even a mom.
posted by Miko at 1:11 PM on April 30, 2013


dhacker, Snopes has its own page.
posted by dhartung at 1:29 PM on April 30, 2013 [3 favorites]


I've been thinking it thru in relation to Sandy Hook. How much of the blame for the shooting was deflected from twenty year old Adam Lanza to his mother? In both cases the young perpetrators are mostly known thru pics in which they appear wide-eyed and feckless. It is a thing, but I can't quite put my finger on what it is.

I dunno, I dont feel like the Sandy Hook kid's mother was blamed, because the kid was a weirdo for years --- a case of a kid with an innate flaw that went unremedied. Whereas the younger Boston bomber was someone who seemed like a normal kid who then changed and became violent, who most people believe was influenced to change. I think it's an open question whether and how you could have fixed Lanza. Boston kid it seems more like, if he'd been separated from the brother he wouldn't have gone as far. Folie a deux. So people pity he more. Bad not mad.
posted by Diablevert at 2:21 PM on April 30, 2013


I blame the parents, both in Sandy Hook and in Boston. Obviously, I also hold the actual murderers responsible. But in both these specific cases, the parenting seems so off, it in itself should be a crime.
Having a house full of guns with a mentally ill child??? That is just crazy.
And the different forms of rubbish we've been hearing from the Boston killer's parents is disgusting and irresponsible. I understand they are grieving, but long before this, they just moved away from their children, who were very young adults. The mother went into radical Islam. The father seems to have just given up on life.
If you get children, that's it. You need to be responsible. Society should identify and help weak parents, for the sake of society (to prevent poverty and crime), and very often when we see these killers, I feel society has failed, too. But the first failure was that of the parents. Kids don't just "suddenly" become sociopaths.
I'm angry right now, because I've just experienced a massive parent-failure that could easily have led to someone dying. Luckily it didn't.

As a consequence, the brothers are equally responsible. Even as their parents are losers and whiners, they have had the opportunity to choose a better life, and lot's of inspirational examples, including the US president. They had access to education, to sports, to friends. No one was forcing them to become killers.
posted by mumimor at 2:58 PM on April 30, 2013 [2 favorites]


Society should identify and help weak parents, for the sake of society (to prevent poverty and crime),

Please don't go there.
posted by headnsouth at 3:16 PM on April 30, 2013 [1 favorite]


. Boston kid it seems more like, if he'd been separated from the brother he wouldn't have gone as far. Folie a deux.

Again, this really hasn't been established.
posted by Miko at 3:20 PM on April 30, 2013 [2 favorites]


Again, this really hasn't been established

I agree, we really don't know very much at the moment. People are theorising from extremely scant facts. But in terms of how the public has reacted, what the conventional wisdom is, most people seem to assume the younger brother was under the thumb of the elder. This may well turn out to be wrong when we know more.

If you get children, that's it. You need to be responsible. Society should identify and help weak parents, for the sake of society (to prevent poverty and crime), and very often when we see these killers, I feel society has failed, too. But the first failure was that of the parents. Kids don't just "suddenly" become sociopaths.
I'm angry right now, because I've just experienced a massive parent-failure that could easily have led to someone dying. Luckily it didn't.


Well, I don't know what kind of personal experience you're bringing to bear on thus situation, and maybe I'd understand you better if I did. But when does the switch flip, in your mind? The switch that changes a person from someone's child, who cannot truly be expected to understand the consequences of their own acts, to a fully functioning adult, whom society can expect to understand laws and consequences and bear full responsibility for what they choose to do? 18? 21? 30? The elder brother was 26. And when does this parental responsibility start? Does the switch flip as soon as you have a kid yourself? There's plenty of teenagers with kids.

As for society identifying and removing kids from "weak" parents....the idea that you think this could be done and done justly and well suggests to me you've never personally encountered how social services work in this country, from any perspective. Humans are weak and power corrupts, and politicians are cowards, and them that's got shall get and them that's not shall lose, to quote Billy Holiday. Besides which, up until the bombing on what basis would the Tsarnev brothers have come up on anyone's radar? The parents didn't leave behind kids in middle school; they retired to the old country leaving behind one son, married with a kid, the other a full time student at a decent college. Less than half of Americans go to college at all.

As for the Sandy Hook kid....my personal feeling is that it's too much to ask of a parent that they look at their child and see a killer. I'm sure some parents have, terrifyingly, done exactly that. But they're almost certainly wrong. There's millions of weird lonely, fucked up kids in this country. There's been few that 100 of these incidents in the past 30 years. Any parent who loves their kid and wants to see the best in them is going to have a tough tough time looking at a kid whose ass they wiped, that they taught to ride a bike and took to the movies, and see a cold blooded killer.
posted by Diablevert at 3:51 PM on April 30, 2013 [3 favorites]


Boston Marathon bomb amputees offered prosthetics free of cost

Thi is something I have been very concerned about. I realize this doesn't address all of their medical bills but it is very helpful.

A trade group representing makers of artificial limbs on Tuesday promised to provide prosthetics free of cost to the estimated 20 to 25 victims of the Boston Marathon bombings who underwent amputations.

How weird that no one has figured out the actual number of amputees. There is a firm number of victims of the bombing (3 dead, 264 wounded) but only an estimate as to the number of people who lost limbs.
posted by Secret Life of Gravy at 4:00 PM on April 30, 2013 [6 favorites]


It kind of makes sense, I think. If I die, it's sort of public knowledge, particularly to casualty lists. If I have my arm amputated, it's the health care of a living individual, and frankly it's kind of between me and my doctor. And while I can see reporters asking for public casualty numbers, I'd kind of rather they didn't go calling a list of families to ask if so-and-so had a limb amputated. (I really don't think doctors can release that kind of thing.)
posted by koeselitz at 4:12 PM on April 30, 2013


Diablevert, I don't believe society should remove kids, unless things have gone completely off. I believe the mother at Sandy Hook should have received help and guidance in dealing with her son, and dealing with her own fears, because she was clearly incapable, and that would have been obvious long before the crime.

And I believe the Boston killers - at least the youngest one, should have had a foster parent after his parents left, because he was underage when they left. College teachers are not able to deal with severe grief, and if your parents leave you, you are in grief, regardless of what you say outwardly. I have students in similar situations, and if finances allow, I send them to counseling.

I can't really write about the thing I went through this weekend because I have no idea who recognizes me on the webs. Not relevant for the police, either, or I would have called. Suffice to say it involved a young person almost killing themself, and a second harming themself considerably and the relevant adults screaming ohnoes we could never have guessed. I need to say that yes, one could have known, as one probably could have known in the cases we are discussing. Not as a peer or a teacher, but as a parent or a close relative or as a health professional.

After this weekend I need to tell you parents out there: you really need to have a conversation about adult life ongoing with your kids. And a conversation means you need to stop fighting and start listening. In almost all these shooting incidents, the lack of communication between young adults and parents is glaring.
In the Boston case, there is the additional drama of the immature mother engaging the older brother in criminal activities (because yes, I believe radical Islam is an illegal activity, not a spiritual movement). This is not inconsistent with her not listening, to the contrary. She has been telling her sons that if they wanted her love, they should commit to radical Islam. She is a truly disgusting person. Imagine if she had truly had a spiritual awakening, and committed herself to Sufi philosophy, or the un-ended discussions at the Al-Azhar. The sons might have been scholars instead of killers.
Or imagine if she had been a mature parent, not a criminal, and had had conversations with her sons about hardship and growth. We all need to deal with feelings of alienation and failure. (Well, except the 1%)

(Again, this does not mean I see the sons as blameless, to the contrary. Every person has the opportunity and obligation to liberate himself from whatever burden he may carry. However, since this is really tough, I support the notion that we as a community/society should support that process. There is not one perfect person, and we can help each other).
posted by mumimor at 4:35 PM on April 30, 2013 [2 favorites]


How weird that no one has figured out the actual number of amputees. There is a firm number of victims of the bombing (3 dead, 264 wounded) but only an estimate as to the number of people who lost limbs.

Medical teams (and patients) will do anything they can to preserve a limb, which in some cases can mean multiple operations over a week or two. There may still be someone who has to have a limb or extremity removed tomorrow. Amputees are counted among the wounded.
posted by headnsouth at 5:20 PM on April 30, 2013 [3 favorites]


And I believe the Boston killers - at least the youngest one, should have had a foster parent after his parents left, because he was underage when they left. College teachers are not able to deal with severe grief, and if your parents leave you, you are in grief, regardless of what you say outwardly. I have students in similar situations, and if finances allow, I send them to counseling.

The wire stories I've looked at seem to say the father returned to Russia on a permanent basis last year. Kid's 19 now; would have been 18 then, and in college. Maybe 17 and a half? They had extended family in other parts of the states, and he was living with his married older brother.

College teachers are not able to deal with severe grief, and if your parents leave you, you are in grief, regardless of what you say outwardly. I have students in similar situations, and if finances allow, I send them to counseling.

Plenty of kids go to college thousands of miles away from their family at the exact same age; some of them get homesick, but most of them adjust fine. His parents weren't dead. They obviously were still in touch, his brother was able to visit them. Grief seems to me quite a strong word.


In the Boston case, there is the additional drama of the immature mother engaging the older brother in criminal activities (because yes, I believe radical Islam is an illegal activity, not a spiritual movement).

Plenty of spiritual movements have authorized their followers to engage in violence in certain circumstances. Spiritual movements, bizarre cults, and major world religions alike. Plenty of political movements as well. I'd say the majority of people believe that violence can be an appropriate response to politics in certain circumstances. Diplomacy by other means, yes? "We the people, believing these truths to be self-evident..." and we'll all hang together.

Crimes are things against the rules. Can only be against the rules if we agree what the rules are. To kill in war is not a crime because war is outside the rules, outside the law. Every terrorist believes he leads an army in the egg.

This is not inconsistent with her not listening, to the contrary. She has been telling her sons that if they wanted her love, they should commit to radical Islam. She is a truly disgusting person. Imagine if she had truly had a spiritual awakening, and committed herself to Sufi philosophy, or the un-ended discussions at the Al-Azhar. The sons might have been scholars instead of killers.

Maybe. Maybe not. Can a parent's badgering turn a jock into a goth, a drama geek into the class president, a pothead into a letterman? Plenty of people chose certain paths because their parents bully them into it. Plenty of other rebel against such pushing. If what they lusted for was glory, would mysticism appeal to them much?
...one man in his time plays many parts,
His acts being seven ages. At first the infant,
Mewling and puking in the nurse's arms.
And then the whining school-boy...Then a soldier,
Full of strange oaths and bearded like the pard,
Jealous in honour, sudden and quick in quarrel,
Seeking the bubble reputation
Even in the cannon's mouth.

Or imagine if she had been a mature parent, not a criminal, and had had conversations with her sons about hardship and growth. We all need to deal with feelings of alienation and failure. (Well, except the 1%)

Eh, the children of the wealthy are often enough an unhappy lot. Why would understanding hardship and growth make the desire for one's life to have a larger meaning, the tug of a cause to subsume yourself too, any less? The desire to belong to a bigger thing, to have what you're doing with your life mean something for other people, affect other people, it's pretty universal. The problem is the cause and the means, not the desire.
posted by Diablevert at 5:43 PM on April 30, 2013 [3 favorites]


heh - yes, I find it difficult to deal with the rhetoric of revolutionaries and armies. But you are obviously right, what I find appalling is legitimate to millions. In my view, evidence that death and destruction is a constant of human life.

There is a huge difference between "going to college", with your parents paying up and remaining in place for you, and your parents leaving, and you having to figure out what now. I can see it even with 20-somethings. In western culture, we grow up slowly, and these young men were definitely part of western culture. Obviously, most young people who are abandoned deal with it, humans are resilient. But many turn to crime, get pregnant or fall out of education. If we strive towards a richer, more equal society, we need to catch those who are falling. If we can prevent terrible crimes as well, it can't be bad.

Concerning radical Islam, I stand my ground. In my view, there is no difference between this militant political movement and other militant political movements like fascism and militant communism. There is nothing spiritual about it, and all the rhetoric about God is exactly equivalent to the rhetoric about "the people" or "the working classes" of the previous (and still extant) radicals. The radicals borrow language from perfectly sound and reasonable philosophies (patriotism, socialism, religion) in order to legitimize their violence, and it works. It is disgusting, and while I acknowledge we cannot penalize thoughts, we should always be aware that radicals of this type are on the path to serious crime.
posted by mumimor at 6:05 PM on April 30, 2013 [1 favorite]


Boston kid it seems more like, if he'd been separated from the brother he wouldn't have gone as far.

It's an obvious failure of higher education -- because I think we can all agree that the chief purpose of college is to help you escape from your godawful family.*

*Hey, it worked for me.
posted by FelliniBlank at 6:14 PM on April 30, 2013 [1 favorite]


How weird that no one has figured out the actual number of amputees

What headnsouth says is true, based on the detailed news reports. There are a few people who still have their limbs, but those limbs were so damaged and the repair efforts so extreme that it's not yet clear whether the limbs will be functional if they healed, and/or whether they will even be able to knit back together and heal sufficiently for the patients to keep them. It may take weeks to figure out, and in some cases there is a judgment call to be made on the patient's part (live with a nerve-damaged, unresponsive and weak limb, or with a prosthesis).
posted by Miko at 6:37 PM on April 30, 2013 [1 favorite]


I mean, unless it is all a conspiracy and he is innocent, that is seriously fucked up. Could any of us handle a murder we had commited with such nonchalence?

How can you possibly know how you, or anyone you know, would react after committing a murder? People who commit serious crimes, including murder, are just not that different from people who don't. In aggregate there are surely some important differences; but there's a whole bunch of people who haven't and won't commit such crimes who are psychologically not distinct from those who do. There's a huge amount of chance and circumstance involved. Not some demonic difference in people's souls, or deep psychosis. The average person is not as immune from doing horrifying things as people like to believe.

And, more generally, common intuition about how people behave after psychological trauma is extremely unreliable. A lot of people become very emotive. A lot of people become emotionally deadened. A lot of people act as if nothing has changed. Some try to connect with others; some isolate themselves.

This thread has all these absurd narratives that psychoanalyze Dzhokhar as if he were a character in a film and television drama. That he continued his life as if nothing had happened does not necessarily signify that he's a cunning sociopath. It might, and a trained professional would factor it into a diagnosis. But it might not, because it's just one among a range of behaviors people display in such situations, perpetrators and victims alike, and for similar reasons.

This is the flip-side of excessive sympathy for Dzhokhar. It's as if the two possible narratives are either demonized murderer or psychologically abused victim. Both narratives, in that they are the dominant and extreme narratives, say more about how people put a lot of effort into convincing themselves that the people who do really terrible things are absolutely, positively, different from themselves in some essential respect. The victim narrative is superficially empathic, but ultimately it amounts to a patronizing othering because it sees Dzhokhar as being broken in some fundamental way that the proponents of the theory would never consider could be true about themselves. Likewise, the demonized narrative also presumes some essential core difference that creates a chasm between Dzhokhar and those who see him this way.

These narratives are not about who Dzhokhar Tsarnaev really is and why he did what he did; these narratives are bedtime stories we tell ourselves about the monsters outside in the dark.
posted by Ivan Fyodorovich at 8:20 PM on April 30, 2013 [15 favorites]


CNN and BBC are reporting that police have made three new arrests in the bombings. No articles yet.
posted by Holy Zarquon's Singing Fish at 8:26 AM on May 1, 2013


Boston Globe is reporting that they're college students. If it turns out that the laid-back college-boy next-door neighbor kid was the leader, and the angry, disaffected Muslim was the follower, how will we "other" the next high-profile murderer?
posted by headnsouth at 8:41 AM on May 1, 2013 [2 favorites]


CNN: Conspiracy to obstruct justice and false statements to police (that's the charges, not their day-of reporting). So only after-the-fact stuff thus far.
posted by Holy Zarquon's Singing Fish at 8:54 AM on May 1, 2013


CBS is reporting their names (2/3): "Both are originally from Kazakhstan and attended the University of Massachusetts at Dartmouth with Dzhokhar Tsarnaev."
posted by rosswald at 9:32 AM on May 1, 2013


NPR has been reporting since yesterday on their news blurbs on the hour that police had detained two Kazakhstan students from Dartmouth for questioning, are these the same two guys or two new ones?
posted by DynamiteToast at 9:39 AM on May 1, 2013


If it turns out that the laid-back college-boy next-door neighbor kid was the leader, and the angry, disaffected Muslim was the follower

That sure would be interesting if it turned out that way. What's the evidence for it, though?
posted by (Arsenio) Hall and (Warren) Oates at 9:45 AM on May 1, 2013


What's the evidence for it, though?

"If it turns out" is speculation, not an assertion.
posted by headnsouth at 10:10 AM on May 1, 2013


Oh, well, then let me just say that if it turns out the InfoWars guys are right, and this is all a false flag from the FBI, then I know that I personally will be extremely angry and will really have to reevaluate my thoughts and feelings relating to this event.
posted by (Arsenio) Hall and (Warren) Oates at 10:14 AM on May 1, 2013 [1 favorite]


Holy cow. Talk about dumb kids acting dumb. My lord, here is the criminal complaint.
posted by (Arsenio) Hall and (Warren) Oates at 11:29 AM on May 1, 2013 [6 favorites]


Wow, that's kind of astonishing. What idiots. Did they think text messages wouldn't be traced? Their phone logs wouldn't be released to the FBI? That no one would talk, or break under questioning? That by throwing things in the trash they would simply disappear and be gone forever?

Complete idiots.
posted by zarq at 11:45 AM on May 1, 2013 [2 favorites]


here is the criminal complaint

tl;dr: "they then collectively decided to throw the backpack and fireworks into the trash because they did not want Tsarnaev to get into trouble."
posted by seemoreglass at 11:48 AM on May 1, 2013 [2 favorites]


here is the criminal complaint

tl;dr: "they then collectively decided to throw the backpack and fireworks into the trash because they did not want Tsarnaev to get into trouble."

and also:
"inside the backpack the agents recovered fireworks, a jar of Vaseline and a U-Mass Dartmouth homework assignment sheet. I have determined that that the homework assignment sheet is from a class in which Tsarnaev is currently enrolled."
posted by readery at 12:16 PM on May 1, 2013


"they then collectively decided to throw the backpack and fireworks into the trash because they did not want Tsarnaev to get into trouble."

Phillipos — with history of lying — has been dealt with leniently. When asked "if [Kadyrbayev] should get rid of the stuff", Phillipos replied "Do what you have to do". And that isn't conspiring?

Notice there was no acknowledging the recovery of the laptop from the landfill site?
posted by de at 12:17 PM on May 1, 2013


I have determined that that the homework assignment sheet is from a class in which Tsarnaev is currently enrolled.

"Here you go, Larry. Do you see what happens? Do you see what happens, Larry? Do you see what happens when you find a stranger in the Alps?"
posted by (Arsenio) Hall and (Warren) Oates at 12:19 PM on May 1, 2013 [9 favorites]


Those guys are definitely out of their element.
posted by octobersurprise at 12:23 PM on May 1, 2013 [5 favorites]


Tsarnaev's return texts contained "lol" and other things KADYRBAYEV interpreted as jokes such as "you better not text me" and "come to my room and take whatever you want"

It's like they were trying to keep their friend from getting in trouble with the RA during room inspection. I can only imagine the collective pants-shitting that must have occurred when they realized what they were actually doing.
posted by inertia at 12:25 PM on May 1, 2013


When asked "if [Kadyrbayev] should get rid of the stuff", Phillipos replied "Do what you have to do". And that isn't conspiring?

I'm interested to hear a legal opinion about that, because from my lay perspective I think it's a hard question. What's sufficient to establish conspiratorial intent on his part, if he didn't actually explicitly encourage or participate in the actual acts of moving and disposing of the stuff? "Do what you have to do" is a great line for a conspirator who is not-saying-the-thing-you-know-he-means in a crime drama, but legally speaking not saying it and not doing it probably counts for a lot.

That's not to say it doesn't look bad and wasn't idiotic to even go near, but still. It seems complicated. And one thing I've noticed a lot from reading about little bits of the intersection of linguistics and legal proceedings is that people seem to be willing to make a lot of assumptions about what what someone said means based mostly on inference and a presumption of guilt by association or context.
posted by cortex at 12:33 PM on May 1, 2013 [1 favorite]


Phillipos — with history of lying

Where did this bit come from? (Not arguing, just didn't see it anywhere.)
posted by mudpuppie at 12:38 PM on May 1, 2013




If it wasn't for the phone/text logs and the fact these guys really do seem pretty much like idiots, I'd have surmised that these guys might've been at least peripherally-involved. That is, their actions would make a lot of sense as a response to a "guilty conscience" scenario -- maybe they weren't really involved in the bombing, but did go shopping for fireworks together and were afraid of being implicated accidentally -- on the theory that if they destroyed the evidence they'd be doing both themselves and their friend a real solid favor.

But, I mean, they really do seem like idiots. Murphy's law everywhere and in every direction.
posted by hoople at 12:42 PM on May 1, 2013


but legally speaking not saying it and not doing it probably counts for a lot.

Yeah. Given they were the only quoted sentences in that section, from (no doubt) lengthy questioning, I took "Do what you want to do" as a legal release from conspiracy. I later thought Phillipos maybe provided details in return for leniency.

Phillipos — with history of lying

Phillipos was interviewed 4 times before he finally decided to confess. (See section 31) Prior to that Phillipos played with the truth, lied about not entering dorm rooms, etc, and concealed facts.
posted by de at 12:50 PM on May 1, 2013 [1 favorite]


Seems like Jahar wasn't too tight with the roomate, or that the roomate is cleverer than the rest of these chuckleheads. Because it seems clear that the cops found out about them taking the bag pretty much immediately.
posted by Diablevert at 1:24 PM on May 1, 2013


I think people are being too easy on these idiots. Are they stupid? Yes. But deliberately attempting to destroy evidence in a terrorist attack isn't something you do because you are buddies with someone.
posted by Justinian at 2:17 PM on May 1, 2013 [1 favorite]


I guess one downside of being a terrorist is having the world know that you are carrying around vaseline in your backpack.
posted by angrycat at 3:20 PM on May 1, 2013 [4 favorites]


I guess the question is at what point did they realize it was 'evidence.'
posted by rosswald at 3:24 PM on May 1, 2013


From the affidavit (para 14 on page 11 of the PDF) it seems as though Dzhokhar might have actually stopped to take a photo of the unexploded bomb before leaving the scene. Wouldn't it be something if they can retrieve that photo.
posted by Joe in Australia at 3:46 PM on May 1, 2013 [3 favorites]


Oh god, those poor chuckleheads. I wonder what kind of sentence they will get for sticking to the bro code?
posted by Secret Life of Gravy at 4:30 PM on May 1, 2013


People who commit serious crimes, including murder, are just not that different from people who don't.

I'm not really sure that this is true and am wondering on what you base it. I'm not really hostile to your larger point about constructing othering narratives, but at least as far as I'm familiar, there are characteristics much more often found in violent criminals than in the general population, like degree of self-control, violent ideation, history of abuse, low threshold of frustration, etc. There is certainly more than one set of characteristics but I don't think the idea that violent criminals are totally undifferentiated from the general population is correct.
posted by Miko at 4:43 PM on May 1, 2013 [2 favorites]


I guess the question is at what point did they realize it was 'evidence.'

If they didn't think it was evidence they would have no reason to take it.
posted by Miko at 4:48 PM on May 1, 2013 [1 favorite]


NYT is excellent on this:
Mr. Kadyrbayev told the authorities that he suspected that Dzhokhar Tsarnaev had been involved in the marathon bombings when he went to his friend’s dorm room with the others three days after the attacks and noticed that several tubes that had previously contained fireworks had been emptied of their powder.

Mr. Kadyrbayev said he had shown Mr. Tazhayakov, who, along with Mr. Phillipos, was with him at the time, a text message from Dzhokhar saying, “I’m about to leave if you need something in my room take it,” the affidavit said.

...In the room, they found a backpack containing “an emptied-out cardboard tube” that had previously contained fireworks and a jar of Vaseline that Mr. Kadyrbayev believed had been used “to make bombs,” according to the affidavit...The men then took the backpack, the Vaseline and Mr. Tsarnaev’s laptop to Mr. Phillipos’ apartment.

Mr. Kadyrbayev told the authorities, the affidavit said, that after the men saw news reports that Tamerlan Tsarnaev had been killed, he threw the backpack in the garbage “because they did not want Tsarnaev to get into trouble.” The affidavit does not indicate that the laptop was discarded, and two law enforcement officials said the F.B.I. had it in its possession.
posted by Miko at 4:54 PM on May 1, 2013


If violently killing others were entirely antithetical to most peoples' nature I would think it'd be much more difficult to turn the average person into a soldier than history has shown, or more difficult to get them to democratically support governments that carry out lots of violent killing. It doesn't seem to me that someone would have to be completely fucked up to compartmentalize things this way given the amount of doublethink that is par for the course living in modern American society.
posted by XMLicious at 5:04 PM on May 1, 2013 [1 favorite]


The profile of soldiers also does not match that of the general population.

Though I don't totally disagree with what you're saying, and understand that violence is part of human behavior, I also disagree with the idea that you can turn anyone at all into a murderer, or that no factors distinguish the set of murderers from the general population.
posted by Miko at 5:28 PM on May 1, 2013


I don't know if any of y'all are familiar with @boring_as_heck on Twitter, but he has been trolling the #FreeJahar pretty hard for the last couple of days. It is amusing.
posted by (Arsenio) Hall and (Warren) Oates at 5:34 PM on May 1, 2013 [4 favorites]


Under the 'we are all monsters in the right circumstances' operating theory I can picture myself doing a lot of bad things but I hope I would be smarter than these guys because that is just deeply stupid.

From the affidavit (para 14 on page 11 of the PDF) it seems as though Dzhokhar might have actually stopped to take a photo of the unexploded bomb before leaving the scene. Wouldn't it be something if they can retrieve that photo.
posted by Joe in Australia at 3:46 PM on May 1 [+] [!]


Ibid.
posted by bq at 5:34 PM on May 1, 2013


My view of history is that people were generally more interested in self-preservation than anything.

Attacking my home and children - hard stop. Marching to defend the King's honour - maybe I'll run away first chance I get.
posted by rosswald at 5:34 PM on May 1, 2013


Marching to defend the King's honour - maybe I'll run away first chance I get.

And history testifies that you are not uncommon in this way.
posted by Miko at 5:49 PM on May 1, 2013


The profile of soldiers also does not match that of the general population.

I would think it gets pretty close during a draft, though; those are the parts of history I'm talking about. Whether that counts as being a murderer or not I don't think it is so impossible for the average person to nonchalantly tweet or attend a party after killing people, particularly if they've done so out of a belief in the necessity of it in a larger scheme of things rather than for more personal reasons.

And in this case it's not like he looked anyone in the eyes as he pulled the trigger - he saw it all unfold on TV, maybe not quite as distantly as a drone pilot would but still not so immediate or blood-on-your-hands.
posted by XMLicious at 6:01 PM on May 1, 2013 [1 favorite]


Whether that counts as being a murderer or not

No, I think it's not an especially useful comparison. The entire context is different. Drafts are not done fairly. Not everyone makes it through training. Training is a finely designed set of experiences to create the willingness to kill. It often fails, as there is a consistent problem of soldiers not actually aiming their fire. Soldiers themselves (from all wars I've studied) will describe some people who are "crazy" and seem to relish killing, and note that that differentiates them from the others. The broader society has legitimized the work of soldiers. And many people who do that work spend the rest of their lives trying to get over it. It's just not the same thing.

There's been enough research on all this that I'm pretty sure in my point of view that there are characteristics that are more prevalent among murderers than non-murderers, especially when we limit the discussion to totally voluntary, self-organized and non-institutionally-sanctioned murders.
posted by Miko at 6:17 PM on May 1, 2013 [1 favorite]


Well, I certainly agree that in the specific sense of "people who commit serious crimes" you lay out there are going to be some characteristics that will qualify as statistically significant within the social sciences that measure them, characteristics that might be argued to be a cause rather than a consequence of commiting the crime even in a first-time offender.

I guess the question is whether those characteristics and their magnitude would equate to the subjects being "different" in some essential way from other humans or "not that different" and I'm just inclined to pick the latter, unless we're discussing Tsarnaev relishing killing in a non-contextually-justified way rather than him simply being comfortable enough to tweet nonchalantly or attend a party in a situation where concealing himself was essential to continuing with his objectives.
posted by XMLicious at 6:48 PM on May 1, 2013


Under the 'we are all monsters in the right circumstances' operating theory I can picture myself doing a lot of bad things but I hope I would be smarter than these guys because that is just deeply stupid.

Some of the comments in this thread are amazing to me. It is clear that on metafilter it is worse to be an "idiot" than to be "evil." These guys presumably saw the same pictures we did of "Johar" putting a bomb down and pointing it at small children who were subsequently blown to pieces, and their reaction was not horror and to do anything they could to help the police catch Johar, but to protect him. And metafilter's reaction is not moral outrage, but "thank God I'm not as dumb as these guys."

It is deplorable to me that they would react by protecting Johar instead of helping the FBI to ascertain everyone who was involved in the bombing. If they thought they were protecting themselves, I would understand a little better but would still be outraged.
posted by Golden Eternity at 6:54 PM on May 1, 2013 [1 favorite]


These guys presumably saw the same pictures we did of "Johar" putting a bomb down and pointing it at small children who were subsequently blown to pieces, and their reaction was not horror and to do anything they could to help the police catch Johar, but to protect him.

I think they were more in self-preservation mode, but who knows what they were really thinking - after all, all we've got is what the FBI says they kids said and did and they aren't exactly a perfectly reliable source.

Of course, its easy for me to say - being white, upper middle class, and full blooded American - but the best thing they could have done for themselves and the bombers was to call the FBI.

Even to the extent that such a thing might be a bad idea, what these kids did was... well, not very well thought out and actually pretty dumb.

Then again, acting stupid can get you out of a lot of trouble sometimes, so maybe that's their ploy.
posted by Pogo_Fuzzybutt at 7:21 PM on May 1, 2013


the best thing they could have done for themselves and the bombers was to call the FBI.

I'm sure the fact that two of them were here under expired visas operated against this. Yes, the FBI might have been lenient had they called, but that would have looked like a big risk to them.

It's still really hard for me to understand, yes, that they did this knowing they were covering up for such a heinous crime. Which, clearly, they did.
posted by Miko at 7:31 PM on May 1, 2013


With respect, Miko, it's too early to say what they knew and what they didn't know. According to the affidavit at least one of the students (Tazhayakov) had set off fireworks with Dzhokhar a couple of months earlier; they may have been trying to cover up their own innocent connection to Dzhokhar, knowing that any investigation would reveal that they were illegal immigrants.

Now, if I were in that situation I would probably guess that my best chances lay in pre-emptively contacting the FBI via a lawyer and offering to tell them everything on condition that that my coming forward didn't lead to deportation. But I'm not 19.
posted by Joe in Australia at 8:06 PM on May 1, 2013 [1 favorite]


That's pretty unfair. Please have a little charity.
posted by bq at 8:53 PM on May 1, 2013


what's unfair? was something deleted?
posted by sweetkid at 8:55 PM on May 1, 2013


The accusation that if I think these guys were stupid then I think they were worse than the bombers, and that I am not morally outraged by their behavior.
posted by bq at 9:02 PM on May 1, 2013


"Some of the comments in this thread are amazing to me. It is clear that on metafilter it is worse to be an "idiot" than to be "evil." These guys presumably saw the same pictures we did of "Johar" putting a bomb down and pointing it at small children who were subsequently blown to pieces, and their reaction was not horror and to do anything they could to help the police catch Johar, but to protect him. And metafilter's reaction is not moral outrage, but "thank God I'm not as dumb as these guys.""

Give us a little credit man — it's pretty fucking stupid to kill a bunch of marathoners to maybe prove some political point? Something about the inferiority of foot travel?

At a certain point, moron and evil converge — you are literally too stupid to avoid blowing up your fellow citizens! What the fuck kinda plan is that? So that they continue to be fucking morons throughout their misadventure is confirmation that my fucking Christ it's dumb to blow up people in general! It solves literally zero of the problems you would like it to solve! It is, in ultimate efficacy terms, just shy of posting a petition on Facebook. These guys were too stupid to do that!

(Sorry for being up in here with the !!! like Mark Trail but this is like, example one of what a dedicated moron can do to society.)
posted by klangklangston at 9:29 PM on May 1, 2013 [1 favorite]


Here's a story from the Daily Mail claiming that Saudi Arabia warned the USA about Tamerlan Tsarnaev. Bits of it have already been denied by the US State Department, and the Daily Mail has a poor reputation for reliability. But still, here it is.
posted by Joe in Australia at 10:23 PM on May 1, 2013




"There is certainly more than one set of characteristics but I don't think the idea that violent criminals are totally undifferentiated from the general population is correct."

That's not what I wrote. It's far from what I wrote:
People who commit serious crimes, including murder, are just not that different from people who don't. In aggregate there are surely some important differences; but there's a whole bunch of people who haven't and won't commit such crimes who are psychologically not distinct from those who do.
In aggregate there are differences in psychology. But those psychological traits are not sufficient for criminal violence; there are many other factors involved and a whole bunch of people who have those traits haven't and won't end up committing a violent crime. Not only that, but those aggregated traits are not universally found in violent criminals; many don't fit that profile and therefore those traits aren't even necessary for criminal violence. Psychological differences in the aggregate is one way to talk about the two groups, a good way, but it's not the only thing that matters and it's not predictive; and even when you exclude known violent criminals from the context there's still going to be a whole bunch of people like "them" among "us" when you talk about how "we" could never do such a horrible thing.
posted by Ivan Fyodorovich at 10:43 PM on May 1, 2013 [3 favorites]


" In aggregate there are surely some important differences; but there's a whole bunch of people who haven't and won't commit such crimes who are psychologically not distinct from those who do."

Citation please.

"It doesn't seem to me that someone would have to be completely fucked up to compartmentalize things this way given the amount of doublethink that is par for the course living in modern American society

So you are equating turning a blind eye to your countries atrocities abroad as you struggle through your daily life with bombing a marathon and killing a child and maiming hundreds?
posted by marienbad at 5:37 AM on May 2, 2013


I don't know if any of y'all are familiar with @boring_as_heck on Twitter, but he has been trolling the #FreeJahar pretty hard for the last couple of days. It is amusing.

Oh that is amazing. "Jahar hated backpacks." "[I knew he was innocent] it was a gut feeling as soon as I saw his pic." Never forget the most innocent man who ever lived got a death sentence #Bible."

He is going to get a hell of a lot of marriage proposals, isn't he.
posted by Secret Life of Gravy at 5:49 AM on May 2, 2013 [4 favorites]


call off the investigation. the suspect is cute and uses Instagram

I am dying over here at @boring_as_heck's twitter feed.
posted by inertia at 8:05 AM on May 2, 2013 [4 favorites]


What's sufficient to establish conspiratorial intent on his part, if he didn't actually explicitly encourage or participate in the actual acts of moving and disposing of the stuff?

Good question cortex. the easy answer is that this dude knew that brothers tsarnayev did it or had reasonable evidence to said act. ( tampering/destoying evidence of the bombing)

one of his friends that he resembled one of the suspects in the widely released surveillance video, he sent a chilling response: "Lol, you better not text me,"

establishes that he knew or suspected him as the bomber.

"Come to my room and take whatever you want"

sounds innocent unless you suspect he did a bombing.

hence conspiracy to subvert justice or what ever sounds correct.
posted by clavdivs at 8:09 AM on May 2, 2013


So you are equating turning a blind eye to your countries atrocities abroad as you struggle through your daily life with bombing a marathon and killing a child and maiming hundreds?

I'm saying that if someone can participate in bombing and killing and maiming civilians and children in one way and tweet nonchalantly and go to parties, it is not beyond belief or some kind of shibboleth to bomb and kill and maim civilians and children the other way and be able to tweet nonchalantly and go to parties.

Mass violence is simply not as abhorrent or antithetical to the nature of the average person as you're trying to portray it; in America as a nation we definitely have not rejected it as unacceptable or alien, in fact we have embraced a variety of justifications and abstractions to ensure it's available as a regularly-chosen option for solving problems. There are a variety of ways most of us can count ourselves as superior to or different from Dzhokhar Tsarnaev but I doubt that it's a very common one to be completely unable to compartmentalize our familiar and daily lives from violence we have decided is necessary.
posted by XMLicious at 9:38 AM on May 2, 2013 [2 favorites]




> one of his friends that he resembled one of the suspects in the widely released surveillance video, he sent a chilling response: "Lol, you better not text me,"

establishes that he knew or suspected him as the bomber.


One of my friends looks a lot like him. We were joking about it the whole week. (And how many "chilling" messages begin with "Lol?")
posted by ChurchHatesTucker at 10:29 AM on May 2, 2013


And if your friend had previously bragged about knowing how to build a bomb and you found a backpack full of fireworks empty of their powder and so on? Would you dispose of that backpack to protect your friend?
posted by Justinian at 12:09 PM on May 2, 2013 [2 favorites]


I am dying over here at @boring_as_heck's twitter feed.

The #freejahar hashtag became 90% trolls a while ago.
posted by mrgrimm at 3:18 PM on May 2, 2013


" In aggregate there are surely some important differences; but there's a whole bunch of people who haven't and won't commit such crimes who are psychologically not distinct from those who do."

Citation please.


Here you go.

You will have to forgive Colin Wilson, whose other hobby was occultism, for a couple of side trips into woo, but that is a prolific true crime writer's encyclopaedic inquiry into the question of why people murder. He covers both people who are obviously not normal, asking how they got that way, and people who seemed completely normal until they unleashed a bloodbath. There are quite a few concrete examples of the latter.
posted by localroger at 3:20 PM on May 2, 2013


You will have to forgive Colin Wilson, whose other hobby was occultism

No, I certainly don't have to forgive that. That guy is definitively not a scholar.
posted by Miko at 4:07 PM on May 2, 2013


No, I certainly don't have to forgive that.

Fine, it's a very small part of that work and you will be denying yourself probably the most comprehensive and thoroughly researched overview of criminality ever written.

A lot of people react to Wilson that way but he has several chapters which bear directly on the asked question of how normal people turn violent, and they draw heavily on psychology. Wilson may not be a "scholar" but he has spent much of his life talking to people who probably qualify for that label even by your standards as part of his research into his crime writing.
posted by localroger at 4:19 PM on May 2, 2013




Oh huh I didn't realize that Tamerlan's wife had stopped talking to authorities. I kept reading she was "cooperating." Maybe she got a lawyer.
posted by (Arsenio) Hall and (Warren) Oates at 5:10 PM on May 2, 2013




From readery's link:
Federal authorities are skeptical of Ms. Russell’s insistence that she played no role in the attack or in helping the brothers elude the authorities after the F.B.I. released photos of them. That skepticism has been stoked by Ms. Russell’s decision in recent days to stop cooperating with the authorities.
This attitude that the exercise of a constitutional right to remain silent should be viewed as suspicious is a mentality that puts all of our Fifth Amendment rights in jeopardy.
posted by Dr. Zira at 5:34 PM on May 2, 2013 [11 favorites]


Dzhokhar's roommate and his three friends, once in the hands of the FBI, and separated, are ripe for Prisoner's Dilemma analyses, and the complaint document is messy. Try to work out what time the three friends met at Dzhokhar's dorm. It's somewhere between 6pm and 10pm on the Thursday. FBI suspect photos had been released to the public, but the final street drama had yet to unfold.

Dzhokhar's roommate: AFAIK, is to date unnamed and uncharged. We can assume he didn't conspire and didn't lie but assisted FBI in their investigation. Guess he informed the FBI that the three friends entered the dorm and removed items.

Removing items does not seem to be the problem.

Kadyrbayev: charged with conspiracy to obstruct justice (facing: 5 years/$250,000). There's no charge he willfully made false statements. He admitted to removing items. He admitted to disposing of items - the real problem. He had been in custody since Saturday 20th for student visa violation - no enrolment. He's now awaiting trial; waived bail hearing.

Tazhavakov: charged with conspiracy to obstruct justice (facing: 5 years/$250,000). There's no charge he willfully made false statements. He admitted to agreeing with removal and disposal of items. He had been in custody since Saturday 20th for student visa violation - iffy. He's now awaiting trial; waived bail hearing.

Phillipos: knowingly and willfully made false statements (facing: 8 years/$250,000). He was interviewed four times over the time Kadyrbayev & Tazhavakov were in custody. During his first 3 interviews he denied there was any access to Dzhokhar's dorm. During his 4th interview he confessed to lying, but was still unsure of details. Forgetful. Denies knowing of, or agreeing to, disposal of items. Good lawyer? He's now in custody awaiting trial on a charge that carries a heavier penalty. (Had he gone on to admit he'd agreed with disposing of items he'd be facing 2 charges.)

On my reading: Kadyrbayev (and Tazhavakov) didn't dispose of the laptop so it doesn't rate a mention, and is not an exhibit in their cases. They were actually in no trouble until Kadyrbayev put items in the bin with Tazhavakov's blessings.
posted by de at 5:39 PM on May 2, 2013 [1 favorite]


This attitude that the exercise of a constitutional right to remain silent should be viewed as suspicious is a mentality that puts all of our Fifth Amendment rights in jeopardy.

It's more that she was married to a terrorist. Cooperating would have helped remove the suspicion.
posted by empath at 6:08 PM on May 2, 2013


Would you dispose of that backpack to protect your friend?

No. I was talking about the "chilling" text message.

Would you download a car?
posted by ChurchHatesTucker at 6:16 PM on May 2, 2013 [3 favorites]


Maybe she got a lawyer.

She's had a lawyer since the day they were identified; he issued most statements on her bahlf all along. Something has clearly changed, though.

they may have been trying to cover up their own innocent connection to Dzhokhar, knowing that any investigation would reveal that they were illegal immigrants.

I don't see how that makes them any less culpable for foiling the investigation of a heinous crime. They knew he was a suspect by the time they did this. It doesn't matter whether they took the backpack to protect him or protect themselves; they did the wrong thing.
posted by Miko at 6:43 PM on May 2, 2013


Dr. Zira wrote: This attitude that the exercise of a constitutional right to remain silent should be viewed as suspicious is a mentality that puts all of our Fifth Amendment rights in jeopardy.

From what I understand this applies to the courts: you can't hold someone's refusal to testify against them. The police, though, are entitled to use it as a factor in deciding whether it's worth pursuing an investigation. If Bartender Moe says "I ain't saying nothing!" a prosecutor can't say "Moe is a criminal because he refuses to cooperate with the police", but while the investigation is ongoing the police can certainly investigate the reason for his refusal. If it turns out thatMoe's a criminal then the discovery isn't shielded by the fact that it was triggered by his exercise of his rights.
posted by Joe in Australia at 6:54 PM on May 2, 2013 [1 favorite]


empath: "Cooperating would have helped remove the suspicion."

"Cooperating" could also give some ambitious officers and/or prosecutors statements that they could use to prosecute an innocent person. "Tell us your side of the story" or "you can help your case if you talk to us" are standard lines in an investigator's playbook to get someone to voluntarily waive the their constitutional rights, and it usually happens well before Miranda rights are triggered, especially in investigations like this in which there are a lot of witnesses who want to talk to the police because they want to be helpful. Sometimes, it happens even after Miranda rights are read.
You would be amazed at how easy it is for an investigator to spin someone's words against them, especially when taken out of context. Innocent people who want to be helpful don't necessarily understand that police can, and will turn on a witness to an investigation to make a collateral prosecution if a zealous investigator eager to prove a theory has a preconceived notion or suspicion about the guilt or innocence of a particular witness.
In a perfect world, investigators would be totally and completely open-minded and be just as aggressive about identifying facts that clear someone as they are about identifying facts that implicate someone. Unfortunately, we don't live in that world, especially where there's a high profile case like this in which professional reputations are built or destroyed.
posted by Dr. Zira at 7:17 PM on May 2, 2013 [5 favorites]


I'm not saying she's not innocent, or that if she is, she should cooperate, only that the suspicion isn't because she's not cooperating. The suspicion is because she was married to a guy that murdered a bunch of people.
posted by empath at 7:35 PM on May 2, 2013 [1 favorite]


empath: "The suspicion is because she was married to a guy that murdered a bunch of people."

Exactly. But the portion of the article I quoted reports they don't believe her when she insists she didn't know what was going on. I disagree with the assertion that "cooperating" would necessarily remove that suspicion, because (a) her attempts at "cooperating" thus far have not seemed to have ameliorated their suspicions (the Times article indicated that her fingerprints didn't match the fragments) and (b) because she was married to a dead suspect there is nothing she can say at this point that would remove that suspicion, full stop. The fed investigators have zero incentive to exonerate her, but have great incentive because of the public thirst for justice to build a conspiracy, perjury, and/or obstruction charge against her, just as they did with the three doofus college dorm buddies, and she has a constitutional right not to incriminate herself. In addition, she's got the added burden of paying for attorneys fees for someone to help her protect her rights, and it sounds like she's got a defense attorney who is doing exactly what they're supposed to be doing - protecting their client's constitutional rights. Professor James Duane, a former criminal defense attorney, says it more eloquently than I can.

*Who we know damned good and well they could be reprimanded for even speaking with the media about the investigation because it says in the article that's why they don't want to be identified.
posted by Dr. Zira at 8:25 PM on May 2, 2013 [3 favorites]


In regards to the argument that since people can be drafted into soldiers and that soldiers kill, therefore there is a killer inside all of us: The extremely interesting book On Killing deals with the discovery after WWII that 90% of soldiers in combat never discharged their weapons, and that in general 10% of soldiers were responsible for the larger number of casualties (I'm being vague here because I haven't read the book recently). The US military has since then developed new training methods to help get more people to break their taboo on killing, but it's hard work.
posted by Bookhouse at 3:52 PM on May 3, 2013 [4 favorites]


Bruce Schneier: Why FBI and CIA didn't connect the dots
posted by homunculus at 5:30 PM on May 3, 2013


In regards to the argument that since people can be drafted into soldiers and that soldiers kill, therefore there is a killer inside all of us

In regards to arguments that have actually been made, I believe Miko already alluded to what you've said above; it just doesn't illustrate anything about whether or not the average person has a constitution of such inviolable rectitude that they'd be unable to hold themselves together after committing "serious crimes" they'd planned out well in advance and so whether subsequently tweeting casually or attending a party is evidence of extraordinary sang froid.

During WWI they actually stopped and held parties on the battlefield and then went right back to shooting at the people they'd just been celebrating with. You just don't have to be some sort of abnormal person of inherent criminality to be capable of transitioning back and forth between violence and semblances of regular life like that, particularly not if it's thoroughly premeditated violence.

Maybe there are accompanying behavioral markers that let you say with certainty "yeah, that guy's a born killer" distinctly from everyone else but this does not appear to be an uncommon trait after people become involved in violent action so I don't think it's one of them.
posted by XMLicious at 6:30 PM on May 3, 2013 [1 favorite]


The US military has since then developed new training methods to help get more people to break their taboo on killing, but it's hard work.

Which is odd when you think about the US and its relationship with guns (and military might). There was no shortage of cameras — some pointing out windows — capturing the Tsarnaev brothers.

America's young. If home-grown terrorism continues to grow and the only response to it is enhanced LE with lockdown, how long will it be before American's take the law into their own hands and form bands of freedom fighters? Decades? Centuries?

America's very young.
posted by de at 8:55 PM on May 3, 2013


it just doesn't illustrate anything about whether or not the average person has a constitution of such inviolable rectitude that they'd be unable to hold themselves together after committing "serious crimes"

It's a different question than the point I was contesting. Sure, it's a question, but the point I was contesting was the idea that there's no significant difference between people who murder and people who don't.

I come from a family chock full of veterans and know a fair bit about war psychology (and its notable failures, elucidated further by Bookhouse) so I'm going to continue to reject arguments about what people have done in war as useful in discussions of self-nominated, independent, non-institutional murder.

It is quite a stretch to claim that: human beings are killers at heart, any one of us could be a murderer, and there is not much difference between those of us who are murderers and those who are not. If there was anywhere near a consensus on this idea, we would know it; the fact that it's been one of the most contested discussions in psychology since the Third Reich, since Milgram, since Landis, since Zimbardo, since Singer, blah blah blah. The bottom line is that there is no such consensus, that the puzzle of human cruelty is as complex as that of human sexuality or any other aspect of human behavior, and that essentialist statements about what human beings "really are" are quite unsupported - really, they are the stuff of poets and polemicists, people who wish to take a certain perspective and amplify it. The actual story is obviously far more complex. A person might feel that that "we're all murderers" is a point of view they want to promote, but in the search for supporting evidence you will be crossing a difficult mire which has bogged down many a researcher before them, most of them people with far more knowledge and data at hand. We are not all murderers. We are not all chess masters, we are not all musical prodigies, we are not all eidetic, we are not all bipolar, we are not all extraverts, we are not all professional athletes, we are not all leaders, we are not all nurturers, we are not all supertasters. To assert that there is some latent predisposition to cruelty/murder in all human beings is reductive and unsophisticated.

Whether, once you've already murdered some people, it becomes rational to employ impressive feats of denial, deception and/or manipulation in order to remain unsuspected is an entirely separate question from the question of whether we can reasonably assert that all human beings are inherently murderers.

Are we all capable of murder? Physically and intellectually, sure. Behaviorally? No. What research we have bears that out clearly and well.
posted by Miko at 8:57 PM on May 3, 2013 [2 favorites]


America's young. If home-grown terrorism continues to grow

All the terrorism that's ever happened in America is still super tiny in the grand scheme.
posted by Miko at 8:59 PM on May 3, 2013


Since Tamerlan's body is now about two miles from me, and horrible idiots are running about in my city in front of the many waiting cameras, screaming about how mortified they are that a funeral home here has taken him in and insinuating it's some publicity stunt, I've just been trying to let the maximum number of people know about the background of the home and funeral director involved:

"When the authorities find the dead body of a senior citizen or a down-on-his-luck individual with no friends or relatives, it's the Graham, Putnam and Mahoney funeral home that gets the call from police."

That doesn't even cover a fraction of their work, including that during the height of the AIDS epidemic, there was a period in which Peter Stefan and Graham, Putnam, and Mahoney were the only place that would take them.

He's a hero in this city, and he's been burying the dead that no one else wants to deal with for longer than I've been alive, let alone longer than I've lived here. Murderers, prostitutes, drug addicts, homeless people, etc. He's never turned anyone away because they couldn't pay or because he decided to judge them or their families right to grief and a dignified service.

I was proud, but not surprised, that he took this on as well. Thank you, Peter.
posted by rollbiz at 9:02 PM on May 3, 2013 [29 favorites]


"Sure, it's a question, but the point I was contesting was the idea that there's no significant difference between people who murder and people who don't."

Yes, but since no one actually was arguing that point, your rebuttal is moot.

"The bottom line is that there is no such consensus, that the puzzle of human cruelty is as complex as that of human sexuality or any other aspect of human behavior, and that essentialist statements about what human beings 'really are' are quite unsupported - really, they are the stuff of poets and polemicists, people who wish to take a certain perspective and amplify it. The actual story is obviously far more complex."

Which is exactly what I have been arguing!

Wow, your argument is deeply incoherent. You're explicitly arguing against essentialism and then turning around and arguing that there's an essential difference between murders and non-murderers. All or most of your parallel examples, from supertasters to musical prodigies, are things that most people and, apparently, yourself believe are essential differences in core psychology. Everything about your argument other than the denial of essentialism is an affirmation of essentialism.

The only sense I can make of your arguments is that there's the stuff you know well and there's the stuff you feel, and the two are colliding in a very messy way here.

You're apparently oblivious to the fact that I didn't assert that there were no significant differences between murderers and non-murderers (and the very statement you're responding to including an assertion that there are!) and that I subsequently pointed out that I made no such assertion. Why are you so motivated to argue against something no one here has actually asserted?

Why would you write what I quote above as if it were an argument defending the claim that murderers are quite unlike non-murderers? I mean, sincerely, read what you wrote again and ask yourself whether that supports your exceptionalist argument about murderers, or undermines it. Ask yourself what is more poetic and romantic: that there's something deeply different within musical prodigies and murderers from the rest of us, or that there's not.

You're reacting to something that is both not actually present in this discussion but looms large in your own worldview. As best as I can guess, it's some vulgar Hobbesian deeply cynical and pessimistic view of human nature that sees every person as a monster. But that's not what I think and I don't see anyone in this thread arguing for that. What I and others have been arguing against is the opposing extreme, that sees the violence and ugliness that people do as some sort of deeply exceptional and alien thing, exclusively and inherently in aberrant individuals, the product of some essential difference, metaphysical or psychological or whatever, that is either there or is not there. The argument is against explanations of human behavior such as you criticize above as being simplistic and romantic — that those people are just very different from the rest of us.

More concretely, if the statistical correlations about the evaluated psychology of murderers and non-murderers were actually inherent and universal, then they'd be individually predictive and this whole problem you so emphatically and correctly point out is complicated and lacking consensus wouldn't be. You can't simultaneously argue that it's very complicated and there's little consensus and that this, like other human behavior, has complex and varying etiology and that murderers are like musical prodigies and supertasters. I honestly haven't seen such a contradictory argument in a very long time.
posted by Ivan Fyodorovich at 12:05 AM on May 4, 2013 [1 favorite]


Another relevant reference

Not the most basic source, as it takes what was in 1990 a fairly mature theory of how the Nazi doctors were recruited in order to apply it to the nuclear arms race, but it was my first introduction to that theory, which was developed by psychiatric professionals (including Robert Jay Lifton himself) who directly interviewed Nazi doctors. Lifton has an earlier work more directly addressing the Nazi doctors without the modern nuclear angle.

TL;DR Lifton argues that these people who not just murdered but did so on a vast and / or vastly cruel scale, are normal people and the process by which they become monsters is not all that complicated. It begins with dissociation, with the violent or cruel acts being perceived as something other than what they are, and in extreme cases (including nearly all the Nazi doctors) culminating in doubling, the creation of an "alternate self" which has a completely different moral compass and set of values from the loving family man who goes home from his job at the death camp every day.

Lifton's key argument is that we are all vulnerable to this sort of thing. The beginning is immersion in a "dissociative field," a coherent framework of beliefs which support the dissociative perception. In extreme cases when the dissociation is pushed ruthlessly it can engage a nation, but it might also be pushed on a small group by a charismatic individual like Jim Jones or Charles Manson, or (as in several of Colin Wilson's examples of individual criminality) mutually reinforced between a pair of unfortunately matched partners. It could even be constructed by an individual subjected to a series of unfortunate coincidences or encounters.

With the Boston bombers we have the nascent dissociative field of their Islamic proto-radicalization, and probably the escalating mutual reinforcement seen in pair-partners like Harris / Klebold or Ian Brady and the very disturbingly otherwise normal Myra Hindley. Because of the pair dynamic I tend to think these dipwads would have got up to some nasty mischief even without the Jihad websites, but that was the frame on which they molded the dissociation pattern that made it possible for them to look a person in the eye as they dropped a bomb at their feet.

And Lifton's whole thesis is that not only are these mostly normal people, the proof of that pudding is that as a society we collectively put up with shit that is completely insane for very similar reasons.
posted by localroger at 5:43 AM on May 4, 2013 [2 favorites]


That's such a knowingly insulting response, but anyway.

I didn't assert that there were no significant differences between murderers and non-murderers

"People who commit serious crimes, including murder, are just not that different from people who don't. In aggregate there are surely some important differences; but there's a whole bunch of people who haven't and won't commit such crimes who are psychologically not distinct from those who do."

You're explicitly arguing against essentialism

Where? My argument is actually more behavioral: not everyone participates in the behavior of killing. The underlying reasons for that are complicated, as complicated as the reasons for any other form of exceptionalism, or in fact almost any other form of behavior - therefore probably partly rooted in characteristics people who kill have in common, but not exclusively and solely a product of those roots.

if the statistical correlations about the evaluated psychology of murderers and non-murderers were actually inherent and universal, then they'd be individually predictive and this whole problem you so emphatically and correctly point out is complicated and lacking consensus wouldn't be.

There are no individually predictive criteria for musical prodigies or Olympic athletes, either. Are they "psychologically not distinct" from the general population? I can assert that they're psychologically distinct without asserting that that distinction is necessarily completely essential.

This is my point. You are the one who has seemed to put forward an opinion about the essential nature of human beings that you implied was established fact. It's not established fact. People are psychologically distinct from one another in many important ways, and the causes are complex.

If that is not actually the opinion you meant to put forward, then we don't disagree. It is the sense I make of the paragraph quoted above, but perhaps you meant something different that you didn't say clearly until the last comment. But, knowing your feelings about essentianlism, I think may really be you who is reacting to something that you feel - the need to defend against othering.
posted by Miko at 5:58 AM on May 4, 2013


With the Boston bombers we have the nascent dissociative field of their Islamic proto-radicalization

There are hundreds of thousands of people reading those websites and going to those camps. Many of them, I'm sure, have tight personal friends and relatives. Why aren't there more attacks?
posted by Miko at 6:01 AM on May 4, 2013


Why aren't there more attacks?

Well, if you look at a richer mix of small time criminals (such as Colin Wilson's many examples) you see that what often happens is a perfect storm of alignments that metastasizes into far more than the sum of its parts. As I wrote I tend to think that in Boston the pair dynamic was more important, with jihad just being the particular peg on which they ended up hanging their escalation. And the reason you don't see more couples like Brady / Hindley or these yahoos is that they are an unusual combination of dominance types who normally wouldn't be drawn to form a relationship and they have to be drawn toward one another by some overriding factor, as well as being set off by a sufficient dissociation.
posted by localroger at 6:42 AM on May 4, 2013


In other words, it's complicated. In my view, there are individual characteristics in that mix that creates a "perfect storm."

It occurred to me, also, that information about people who perform violent behaviors is predictive enough to have resulted in a major movement in professional social practice to identify risk factors known to produce discouraged behaviors such as violence or substance abuse, and create protective factors in the lives of "high risk" or "at-risk" children and youth before they've become involved in certain kinds of discouraged behavior and to practice interventions. If there were no discernible patterns and no usable predictive factors, this would not be possible, nor would it work.
posted by Miko at 6:54 AM on May 4, 2013


If there were no discernible patterns and no usable predictive factors, this would not be possible, nor would it work.

See, I'd be inclined to say that it works because these people are not that different from everyone else.

At the very least, if people who carry out "self-nominated, independent, non-institutional murder" (though I'm not entirely sure in this case it would be very divorced from institutions if they really concluded that their actions were endorsed by the religion they were born to and grew up in and could subscribe to magazines dealing with carrying it out) have so much in common with everyone who has been identified as an "high risk" or "at-risk" children or youth, doesn't that still give them quite alot in common with the non-murdering masses?

Unless, after someone has been identified as a "high risk" or "at-risk" children or youth, it's no longer possible to say they're "not that different" from everyone else whether or not they go on to become murderers. This would be difficult for me to believe because I grew up knowing several people who were identified as such and they seem more psychologically normal and similar to everyone else than I myself do.

(In any case, though, this is definitely a separate question from the preceding one about nonchalant tweeting and partying. And it's certainly complicated.)
posted by XMLicious at 7:22 AM on May 4, 2013


There are specific features that can be identified and their workings can be understood. Its not a perfect storm because it's too complicated to understand, it's a perfect storm because there is an unusual confluence of influences.

To take another tack: A good example of a dissociative framework is a cult. People who have made it their life's work to disrupt cults agree that anyone can become a cult member. Cult members are normal people caught in a web of normal vulnerabilities exploited in a proven way.

Once a person is drawn into the dissociative web it can radically change their behavior, even creating an alternate personality with a whole different moral compass. The same normal people vulnerable to the Hare Krishnas in less lucky circumstances run into someone like Charles Manson or Jim Jones. But they're still normal people. The dynamic is straightforward enough that it can be deliberately expoited with consistent success.

In killer couples Colin Wilson observed that you frequently have a combination of high and medium dominance partners. (This isn't woo; this has been a solid psychological assay since Maslow codified it in the 1930's). This is an unusual combination because the high dominance partner would normally prefer a compatibly high-dominance sidekick, but there is some overriding factor such as strong sexual attraction, brotherhood, or shared ostracism which draws the partners together. Then with the unusual pairing forged, "this odd and unusual combination of high and medium dominance actually triggers the violence."

The examples noted non-scholar Wilson offers are Martha Beck (H) and Raymond Fernandez (M); Albert T. Patrick (H) and Charles Jones (M); Richard Loeb (H) and Nathan Leopold (M); and of course Brady (H) and Hindley (M). In each of these very different cases Wilson argues that neither partner would have likely ever turned violent without the other, and that especially in the case of medium dominance partners like Hindley and Fernandez they would probably never have been tempted to murder at all.

This particular thing is, incidentally, the topic of chapter 1 of A Criminal History of Mankind.
posted by localroger at 7:34 AM on May 4, 2013 [3 favorites]


Returning to the topic of soldiers, having re-read a couple of chapters, it's worth noting that the problem with the way soldiers were trained (at least as far as the Army considered it a problem) was essentially a failure to set up a proper dissociative framework. There were of course the propaganda painting the enemy as inhuman, but most soldiers had nothing to map to the experience of being dropped into a charnal house like Iwo Jima, surrounded by severed limbs and mutilated bodies and the constant threatof instant vilent death, and leading one to conclude that an appropriate response might be firing bullets at the enemy. One might in that situation even rationally conclude that firing bullets at the enemy was a stupid, futile, endorsement of the idea that the whole situation should be tolerated.

After the data from the Pacific theatre were studied two major changes were made to the way soldiers were trained.

The first is that they were conditioned to fire without thinking. They were habitualized to respond to battle + movement = fire at it. One can question the wisdom of sending men with such conditioned reflexes back to civilian life but it got the job done in the fields of Vietnam.

The second was that a great emphasis was placed on loyalty to comrades in one's unit rather than to the chain of command. There was obviously much of this in WWII but it became a training priority so that even if you found yourself in a situation where throwing more lead at a mortar seemed like the kind of stupid waste of effort you'd rather punch your commanders for thinking it a good idea, you'd still throw the lead to provide cover and extra time for the men you were with every day.

Using these psychological techniques the Army had much less trouble getting randomly drafted normal young men to shoot at other human beings in Vietnam.
posted by localroger at 8:09 AM on May 4, 2013 [3 favorites]


Miko, I have absolutely no idea how you can quote me saying...

"In aggregate there are surely some important differences..."

...and use that quote as evidence that in that quote I asserted that there are "no significant differences between murderers and non-murderers". I am gobsmacked.

"If there were no discernible patterns and no usable predictive factors, this would not be possible, nor would it work."

Yes, but no one argued that position.

You say I've insulted you, but I'm quite unhappy with how you are repeatedly misrepresenting what I've written, as well as what others have written. No one here has taken the extreme positions you've been arguing against. You're setting up a strawman and that's a bad-faith thing to do. It doesn't engender good will.

My original comment was in response to someone diagnosing a severe psychological disorder based upon assumptions about how "we" would react after killing someone. That diagnosis represents an implicit strong claim about psychological differences between "us" and "killers" and "killers who behave casually afterward". My argument was that the presumed chasm between "us" and "them" is not a chasm, it's an ambiguous swamp where, on an individual basis, it's especially unclear which side anyone is on, murderers and non-murderers alike. Not that there weren't aggregate differences, not that there aren't at-risk life histories, and not that having committed a murder, there isn't something necessarily distinct between a murderer and someone who hasn't murdered. (Because the last bit is either tautological or trivial, it's uninteresting, and when people talk about this stuff they're talking about presumed differences which precede murder, not differences that necessarily arise from having committed a murder.)

But you misread my comment as asserting that there were no differences at all, and then off we went.

What puzzles and bothers me is your investment in defending something between a moderate and strong claim that there's something individually distinct about people who eventually commit violent crime and those who don't. And you have been making such a claim, not just one of statistical correlations in populations, because you have used examples like supertasters, which I thought was particularly notable. You're either a supertaster or you're not, you're born that way, and it's not some ambiguous and complex psychosocial phenomena.

If this discussion were about gender essentialism — which is an example of the relevant usage of "essentialism" in the context of sociology, which includes gender differences and violence — you'd never, ever throw in such a stark biological differentiation into the argument as comparable to how groups of people are or are not psychologically different. You would be far more careful and skeptical about asserting inherent differences in individuals belonging to different populations as a result of statistical correlations. But here you are not so careful or so skeptical and are apparently eager to defend a moderately strong claim that a widely accepted and thought-to-be-self-evident profound difference between individuals really is, factually, a profound difference because there are statistical correlations that show some differences.
posted by Ivan Fyodorovich at 8:29 AM on May 4, 2013 [4 favorites]


To add to the mix of causes of violence, I've chewing on something that a co-worker from the eastern Ukraine said to me recently regarding violence and honor. Her english is imperfect at best, but she was trying to convey that for the Tsarnaev's and other Chechens the inability to be 'successful' has to be someone's fault. Murder for the sake of personal or family honor is a response that is not acceptable in modern society but is understood as a vestige of the past.

It brought back an important point touched on in Vollmann's Rising Up and Rising Down. I don't believe that they did it for honor, but I can see it being a factor in their emotional makeup. I think as a society we are rapidly changing in the way we see violence. Non-violent movements are a fairly modern concept. Although I don't want to sidetrack in to a long argument about it, the Ukranian view of Chechen peoples honor bound world view has stuck in my head. Although they might not have understood it themselves, their mother leaving the country under a cloud of shame (the felony shop-lifting arrest) was a powerful thing. Obama got in to a heap of trouble for claiming the disenfranchised in the US hold on to religion and guns to retain a sense of power over a changing world, but it is a real thing and it isn't just here in the US.
posted by readery at 9:53 AM on May 4, 2013 [4 favorites]






Ivan F, you've really gone far off the trail, misread me and misrepresented your own view. And at this point, you're unable to listen because you have such a fixed idea of what you think I'm saying, so you're just being mulishly nitpicky.

If this discussion were about gender essentialism — which is an example of the relevant usage of "essentialism" in the context of sociology, which includes gender differences and violence — you'd never, ever

I really, really don't like you telling me what I would do - as if you know my reasoning process so intimately. It's creepy. Consider, just maybe, that you don't actually know.

This has been the usual delightful interchange. So screw it. It's time to get my marathon news elsewhere.
posted by Miko at 5:12 PM on May 4, 2013 [3 favorites]


Well Miko since you're out of here, thanks for acknowledging by your obvious indifference that my last two posts must have been correct.
posted by localroger at 5:33 PM on May 4, 2013


Don't be a dick, roger.
posted by klangklangston at 5:41 PM on May 4, 2013 [5 favorites]


And while this might be a bit of a personal derail, a goose just walked over my grave.

My mother died on December 27. Since then barriers have tumbled. I have heard my aunt and other relatives talk about Mom being "bossy." And Dad is beside himself, keeping him off suicide watch has become a major effort because "she was my entire life and I have nothing else to live for."

My parents are were a a high/medium dominance couple. No wonder this clicked with me so well when I first read it in 1985, a couple of years after tearing myself away from them.

And yes, I had to tear myself away. When I was coming of age my mother moved into a dissociative alternate reality in which I would never leave home. For a couple of years the symptoms of this were minor and easily overlooked. But as the likelihood of separation became greater, the means of making it impossible were notched up with (as I saw it at the time) no apparent limit.

I now realize, with a bit of horror, that there really might not have been an upper limit.

I did not speak to my parents for 17 years because I was afraid of them.

I always felt guilty and weird about that, like I overreacted.

I was right. They stole my life savings and my car, and while I got the car back I don't think there was an upper limit on what they would have done to coerce my compliance.

Because they presented a united front I didn't realize until after Mom was gone that Dad was as devoted to her as Myra Hindley was to Ian. He was suicidal and wailing that he would do anything for her in the days after her death. So different from when he firmly threatened to throw me out of the house for having the temerity to get a job. He said explicitly he would have done anything for her and had no purpose without her.

She erected the alternate reality and he backed her up even when it was crazy.

No, they didn't kill me. They did everything short of it though. And I love them still and I know they loved me. Dissociation is fucking bad.
posted by localroger at 5:53 PM on May 4, 2013 [5 favorites]


I'm sorry for what you've been through, localroger, and sorry for your loss of your mother. I wish you and your dad peace.
posted by Miko at 6:20 PM on May 4, 2013 [1 favorite]


Thanks, Miko. It was hard then and hard now for my father. Just hard.
posted by localroger at 6:26 PM on May 4, 2013


Cemeteries Keep Rejecting Tamerlan Tsarnaev's Body

His friend, William Plotnikov, is buried in beautiful seemingly peaceful surroundings. It's where Tamerlan belonged, before he ended up belonging nowhere. For all concerned it's a pity his parents can't afford to take him home for burial.
posted by de at 8:03 PM on May 4, 2013 [1 favorite]


Wayne LaPierre: 'How Many Bostonians Wished They Had A Gun Two Weeks Ago?'

Oh, The Onion. Always there with your knife-sharp parodies of..

Wait, what?
posted by running order squabble fest at 11:11 PM on May 4, 2013 [1 favorite]






The Boston Bombing: Made in the U.S.A.
The Tsarnaev brothers' violence is not just a religious phenomenon, but an American one.
The earliest avatar of this American tradition was Theodore Wieland, anti-hero of Charles Brockden Brown's 1798 novel Wieland. Acting under the sway of "the empire of religious duty," Wieland, son of an immigrant from Saxony, murders his wife and four children at the behest of what he believes to be the audible voice of God. Based on popular accounts of New York farmer John Yates' murder of his family in 1781, Brown's novel warns that a radically personalized Christian religiosity, pieced together from the shards of older, more coherent European traditions, might become a strategy for politicizing religion and using it to enforce an arbitrary moral stability amidst the confusing multiplicity of voices in the early American republic.
posted by the man of twists and turns at 9:18 PM on May 5, 2013 [1 favorite]


Charles Pierce: A Plea From A Home Boy
posted by homunculus at 4:47 PM on May 6, 2013


Wayne LaPierre: 'How Many Bostonians Wished They Had A Gun Two Weeks Ago?'

A college friend, and current Facebook friend, responded to LaPierre thusly tonight:
Dear Wayne LaPierre,

I live in Boston. I work at a hospital that received victims from the terrible attacks. Let me assure you, I absolutely did not wish I had a gun two weeks ago. Once again, you are wrong.

...also, you suck donkey balls.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 8:19 PM on May 6, 2013 [12 favorites]


Goddammit Toronto.
posted by Lemurrhea at 6:28 AM on May 7, 2013 [1 favorite]


Goddammit Toronto.

It was just one asshole. And if it's any consolation, the Leafs lost the game.
posted by Sys Rq at 7:30 AM on May 7, 2013 [2 favorites]


Saturday night a Leafs fan was knocked out by Bruins fans after the game.

So assholes all over the place.
posted by maryr at 4:37 PM on May 7, 2013 [1 favorite]




"Frein has already called the funeral home in Massachusetts where Tsarnaev's body is currently stored and is in the process of contacting the Office of Veteran Affairs to see if she will be able to offer up her plot."

Protip: she will not be able to do so.
posted by jaduncan at 8:13 PM on May 7, 2013 [2 favorites]


No, that's not going to work.

Arlington National Cemetery - Prohibitions against interment or memorialization
Congress has from time to time created prohibited categories of persons that, even if otherwise eligible for burial, lose that eligibility. One such prohibition is against certain persons who are convicted of committing certain state or federal capital crimes, as defined in 38 U.S. Code § 2411. Capital crime is a specifically defined term in the statute, and for state offenses can include offenses that are eligible for a life sentence (with or without parole). The reasoning for this provision originally was to prevent Timothy McVeigh from being eligible at Arlington National Cemetery, but it has since been amended to prevent others.
posted by Miko at 8:56 PM on May 7, 2013


That provision would have to be amended, as technically Tamerlan hasn't been convicted of any crimes. He's still ostensibly innocent, as he hasn't been proven guilty. (Obviously, law and common sense would differ on his guilt.)
posted by klangklangston at 9:22 PM on May 7, 2013 [1 favorite]


If you look up 38 USC § 2411 you'll find it allows for persons who have not been convicted "by reason of such person not being available for trial due to death or flight to avoid prosecution" and allows for the appropriate Federal official to issue a finding. In any case, it's pretty clear that the existing restrictions at Arlington (the most difficult national cemetery to get into, due to worries that it would fill up) would not permit a transfer to a non-eligible person. McVeigh, of course, was a Gulf War veteran awarded the Bronze Star, which in 1997 apparently made him eligible (which it no longer would). Arlington is expected to exhaust all developed space by 2015 and all potentially available space by 2030.
posted by dhartung at 11:16 PM on May 7, 2013 [3 favorites]


He's still ostensibly innocent, as he hasn't been proven guilty.

err, he is dead? and, well, we can charge him later like.
posted by clavdivs at 6:29 AM on May 9, 2013


No, clavdivs, we can't. Habeus corpus, not habeus corpse.
posted by IAmBroom at 9:17 AM on May 9, 2013


Ah, wondered about that. So, the evidence is overwhelming but what court files the formal charges and when. How is that handled with a dead person when they have "committed crimes."

For example Lee Oswald was found guilty of the crime after the Warren Commission came out. Maybe not a great example but who determines the offical verdict of guilt. I assume this would be separate verdict from his brothers trial.
posted by clavdivs at 12:46 PM on May 9, 2013


Oswald was never "found guilty," what happened was that a panel created by Congress issued a determination, which has zero weight as far as Oswald's criminal record or estate.

It is possible for the surviving victims to sue the estate though, in the same way they sued the very much still alive O.J. Simpson after criminal proceedings failed to convict, since the different standards do not require a criminal conviction and the estate is a thing that still exists.
posted by localroger at 3:37 PM on May 9, 2013


clavdivs, if you note the entirety of the US Code I linked, the (probably) head of cemetery interment affairs, or whatever he's called, has the authority to issue a finding based on "clear and convincing evidence". If he denied an otherwise eligible individual a placement, they could presumably appeal, leading to an actual hearing. But the standard of proof is far lower than in criminal courts.
posted by dhartung at 7:08 PM on May 9, 2013 [2 favorites]






homunculus: During the Boston Lockdown, What Would Have Happened if Someone Refused to Let Police Enter a Home?
The dinner table conversation about this at my house was interesting. What it boiled down to was the consensus that it's the military-style dress and operation that make people angry.

I wouldn't necessarily have an objection to police officers in police uniforms asking politely to double check behind me to make sure a fugitive from justice known to be in my neighborhood didn't somehow slip into my home unnoticed. Sure, it's highly unlikely, but it has been known to happen that a person might be in someones house without them knowing it.

The objection is to cops dressed and acting like soldiers. Police are not the proverbial "tip of the spear" and they shouldn't act like it. Like I always say, there's a reason the ancient and honorable symbol of authority for peace officers is a shield rather than a sword. Shouting and pointing weapons at people who were obviously not the suspect in this manner—introducing adrenaline into an already tense situation—is how accidents happen.
posted by ob1quixote at 1:02 AM on May 10, 2013


I wouldn't necessarily have an objection to police officers in police uniforms asking politely to double check behind me to make sure a fugitive from justice known to be in my neighborhood didn't somehow slip into my home unnoticed.

To be fair, there's also the possibility that a fugitive from justice got into your home and is holding someone hostage so as to keep you from telling Officer Friendly that he's in there.

The objection is to cops dressed and acting like soldiers. Police are not the proverbial "tip of the spear" and they shouldn't act like it. Like I always say, there's a reason the ancient and honorable symbol of authority for peace officers is a shield rather than a sword.

And yet, you seem to be against their wearing body armor.

Shouting and pointing weapons at people who were obviously not the suspect in this manner—introducing adrenaline into an already tense situation—is how accidents happen.

No, it's how fuck-ups happen. Accidents can happen at any time -- it's what "accident" means. You're right that adrenaline can be a bad thing in tense situations; it can also save lives.

Your apparent idea that any militarization of the police force is automatically a bad thing, even when something bad didn't happen in this case, is as foolish as the idea that any militarization of the police force is automatically a good thing, even when bad things happen in other cases.
posted by Etrigan at 4:16 AM on May 10, 2013


I am, overall, unhappy with the militarization of the police in the US. However, I think going into a situation where you're plausibly going to encounter someone who has thrown explosives and shot many many bullets with you, well, that's pretty much the circumstance where that sort of SWAT-ed up gear is exactly the right thing.

Really, speaking as a local, I'm pretty okay with the way they handled it. The scope of the "shelter in place" order was only excessive if and only if you know the guy is on foot, and they didn't know that, and from everything I heard, the house sweeps were handled well.
posted by rmd1023 at 6:08 AM on May 10, 2013


FWIW, it was the FBI HRT (as a component of the CIRG) that handled the ultimate apprehension. But the US is so geographically large that it probably does make sense to devolve some 'paramilitary' capabilities to local or at least state authorities, vs. the Euro model by which a hybrid national agency handles that kind of activity. Or even the London model, by which a rather fast and far-reaching mailed fist (in the form of paramilitary response teams) is expertly kept out of view most of the time. More obstrusive efforts have met resistance in cities like London, but the UK is not the US.

Not that much thought has gone into it in the US; instead our mostly autonomous different levels of enforcement do what they will with the budget they can claim driven mostly by popular sentiment, with the result that in some places there are almost comically overlapping resources, and next to nothing in others (where it might matter, but there isn't much of a tax or voter base incentive).
posted by snuffleupagus at 6:26 AM on May 10, 2013


Oswald was never "found guilty."
since he did not have a trial, guilty verdict not rendered, get it. Semantics are important, they hold us together.

still, "It concluded that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone in killing Kennedy"


what happened was that a panel created by Congress issued a determination,
No, sorry, that was a Presidential commission.

Thanks for the link Dan.
posted by clavdivs at 8:29 AM on May 10, 2013 [1 favorite]




Why You'll Never Know Where Tamerlan Tsarnaev Is Now Buried

Boston Marathon bombing suspect Tamerlan Tsarnaev is buried in Muslim cemetery in Doswell, Va.

Doh!
posted by The 10th Regiment of Foot at 9:49 AM on May 10, 2013 [3 favorites]


AwkwardPause: "Boston Marathon bombing suspect Tamerlan Tsarnaev is buried in Muslim cemetery in Doswell, Va."

:( I hope people leave the grave undesecrated. :(
posted by zarq at 9:54 AM on May 10, 2013


And/or don't end up erecting some Jim Morrison style shrine, though I guess that's more the other brother.
posted by Artw at 10:09 AM on May 10, 2013


Creon: You alone, of all the people in Thebes,
see things that way.

Antigone: They see it just that way
but defer to you and keep their tongues in leash.

Creon: And aren’t you ashamed to differ so from them?
So disloyal!

Antigone: Not ashamed for a moment,
not to honor my brother, my own flesh and blood.

Creon: Wasn’t Eteocles a brother too—cut down, facing him?

Antigone: Brother, yes, by the same mother, the same father.

Creon: Then how can you render his enemy such honors,
such impieties in his eyes?

Antigone: He will never testify to that,
Eteocles dead and buried.

Creon: He will—
if you honor the traitor just as much as him.

Antigone: But it was his brother, not some slave that died—

Creon: Ravaging our country!—
but Eteocles died fighting in our behalf.

Antigone: No matter—Death longs for the same rites for all.

Creon: Never the same for the patriot and the traitor.

Antigone: Who, Creon, who on earth can say the ones below
don’t find this pure and uncorrupt?

Creon: Never. Once an enemy, never a friend,
not even after death.

Antigone: I was born to join in love, not hate—
that is my nature.

Creon: Go down below and love,
if love you must—love the dead! While I’m alive,
no woman is going to lord it over me.

(Sophokles, Antigone, trans. Robert Fagles)
(via)
posted by anotherpanacea at 12:39 PM on May 10, 2013 [5 favorites]


Creon: Never. Once an enemy, never a friend,
not even after death.


The translation my high school used was "My enemy is still my enemy, even in death!" which I always thought maybe Creon sound like a proper Klingon.
posted by maryr at 7:53 PM on May 10, 2013 [3 favorites]




Carmen Ortiz got all kinds of internet heat for the Aaron Swartz thing, and rightfully so

Speaking of which: Boston judge limits access to Aaron Swartz court records
posted by homunculus at 3:36 PM on May 13, 2013


Traveler from Saudi Arabia arrested at Detroit Metro with pressure cooker
[...] the prosecutor handling the case is Assistant U.S. Attorney Jonathan Tukel, who prosecuted the terror case against underwear bomber Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab.
No news on what was done with the deadly, deadly, pressure cooker. I suppose that they used it to make some lentil soup and then detonated it remotely.
posted by Joe in Australia at 5:34 PM on May 13, 2013


Lentils are dangerous.
posted by homunculus at 5:45 PM on May 13, 2013


Joe in Australia, are you suggesting that the underwear bomber plot wasn't real? Because if not, having the same prosecutor bolsters the credibility of the charge.

The news article I read said that the guy with the pressure cooker had a page cut out of his passport, then changed his story as to why he traveled with one. It's not like you can't buy one here in the U.S. (though that was his second story).
posted by msalt at 7:34 PM on May 13, 2013


The sad thing is, you'll draw more attention to yourself in the U.S. buying a pressure cooker than buying black powder or thousands of rounds of ammunition.
posted by msalt at 7:35 PM on May 13, 2013 [1 favorite]


Joe in Australia, are you suggesting that the underwear bomber plot wasn't real? Because if not, having the same prosecutor bolsters the credibility of the charge.

What? Those suggestions are so weird that I don't even know how to respond to them.
posted by Joe in Australia at 7:45 PM on May 13, 2013


His nephew, Nasser Almarzooq, told The Associated Press Monday the case was a misunderstanding about the device he wanted for cooking.

It is about the lie.
Perhaps Joe, you could explain the correlation between a lying Saudi and the fictitive cooker you allude to in your highlighted text concerning the "underwear bomber". Could the correlation be faulty cookers or lying idiots with travel plans to Toledo. Is this a case of "wearerism".
posted by clavdivs at 8:08 AM on May 14, 2013


I think that Joe's point may be something along the lines of, given the two facts that he had an altered passport and had a pressure cooker in his baggage, choosing the fact that he had a pressure cooker as the thing to incorporate in the title of the article and devote most of its body text to is kind of like a news reader nodding knowingly and emphasizing "...and he was wearing underwear! And he said they were boxers, but they were really briefs!" and congratulating themselves for sharp journalistic insight.
posted by XMLicious at 6:23 PM on May 14, 2013 [1 favorite]


Jesus Joe, your tripping the lite fantastic and I did not figure that out. Yes, on retrospect that is dumb by-lining. Carry-on gentlemen.
posted by clavdivs at 6:49 AM on May 15, 2013


>>Joe in Australia, are you suggesting that the underwear bomber plot wasn't real? Because if not, having the same prosecutor bolsters the credibility of the charge.

>What? Those suggestions are so weird that I don't even know how to respond to them.

Gratuitous name-calling aside, you counterposed the headline -- "Traveler From Saudi Arabia arrested with pressure cooker" with this quote:

[...] the prosecutor handling the case is Assistant U.S. Attorney Jonathan Tukel, who prosecuted the terror case against underwear bomber Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab.

And then you ridiculed the whole case. The implication is that the choice of prosecutor made the case even more ridiculous. Unless you thought there was something off about the underwear bomber case, I don't understand why that would be.

Because really, a Saudi national with an altered passport bringing to the US a device commonly used in bombs, and lying about why he did that, is not a crazy thing to be concerned about on the face of it.
posted by msalt at 10:17 AM on May 15, 2013


Msalt, I know nothing about this guy, obviously, and for all I know he may be the chairman of Al-Qaeda. But the headlined reason he was pulled up was that he had a pressure cooker in his luggage. Pressure cookers can be used to make a cheap-and-nasty bomb, as we recently saw. They are also things that are readily available at kitchen supply stores and presumably places like Amazon and Goodwill and heaven knows where else.

The theory that this guy is a terrorist rests, apparently, on the idea that someone planning an attack would think "OK, gunpowder and shrapnel would be hard to smuggle through customs, but I will be able to get them in the USA. But a pressure cooker - that's innocuous! and it will save me valuable moments of shopping, plus the chance of inconvenient questions from the staff at Williams Sonoma."

Anyone bringing a pressure cooker to the USA right now for the purposes of planning a terror attack would be incredibly, incredibly stupid. Add that to the fact that he allegedly had a badly-altered passport and he might as well have been been carrying an illuminated sign saying ARREST ME BECOZ I R TORIRIST. This guy is either innocent, or a complete joke. The suggestion that this case needs some tip-top investigator is just further evidence of the way the USA has been busily chasing rabbits up its own fundament.
posted by Joe in Australia at 2:11 AM on May 16, 2013


msalt: Because really, a Saudi national with an altered passport bringing to the US a device commonly used in bombs

And, you know, cooking things. Under pressure. I mean, when you say "commonly", I have a feeling that pressure cookers are used for cooking quite a lot more commonly than they are used in bombs.
Al-Khawahir's nephew, Nasser Almarzooq, told The Associated Press on Monday that the arrest was a misunderstanding and that he wanted the high-quality device to cook lamb. Almarzooq, who is studying mechanical engineering at the University of Toledo near Detroit, said his uncle was coming to visit him for a couple weeks.
It's wild speculation, but if you are the kind of Saudi national who has a nephew studying in Ohio, whom you are visiting, you may well be able to get a high-quality pressure cooker for a lot less through contacts in Saudi than in the US.

This may turn out to be something, or it may turn out to be very poor timing, and an example of airport security chasing the last thing rather than the next thing.

(Also wild speculation, but a missing page in a passport might be due to an unwise or unplanned one-off trip to a country it would be a hassle to get in and out of either the US or Saudi after visiting. I've known of people with two passports - one for the US and Israel, one for Saudi Arabia and parts surrounding...)

The appointment of Tukel, I suspect, is just because it's his watch, rather than because he is the most high-profile possible appointee: he's the assistant US Attorney for the Eastern District of Michigan, and head of the National Security unit. It just happens that both of these cases happened at Detroit Metropolitan Airport.
posted by running order squabble fest at 2:41 AM on May 16, 2013


NYT: Note by Boston Bombing Suspect Sheds Light on Motive, Officials Say
As the police and federal agents pursued him in a Boston suburb four days after the marathon bombings, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev scrawled a note inside the hull of the boat where he was hiding that said the attack was retribution for wars the United States waged in Iraq and Afghanistan, according to two law enforcement officials. ¶ The note stated that if you attack one Muslim, you attack all Muslims, an official said, speaking generally about its content.
posted by stopgap at 9:09 AM on May 16, 2013 [1 favorite]


... The note went on to say that Dzhokhar was disappointed he wouldn't be able to meet someone named "Al-Khawahir" at the airport, who was apparently promising to cook up some of his mother's famous "pressure-cooked lentils" for him to enjoy.
posted by IAmBroom at 9:39 AM on May 16, 2013


The suggestion that this case needs some tip-top investigator is just further evidence of the way the USA has been busily chasing rabbits up its own fundament.

I don't understand why you believe the U.S. has assigned some top investigator to this case? If a guy is arrested at the Detroit Airport, he's going to be prosecuted by Detroit-based prosecutors and the case will be heard in the Eastern District of Michigan. I assume the assistant U.S. Attorneys in the Eastern District of Michigan are competent and they have experience from working on the underwear bomb case, but this is a assignment based on geography. The U.S. does not, typically, base its elite units in Detroit.
posted by Area Man at 9:58 AM on May 16, 2013


qv Justice League Detroit.
posted by running order squabble fest at 10:32 AM on May 16, 2013


Joe & ROSF: Fair enough, none of us know yet. The wide availability of pressure cookers cuts both ways -- it's what makes it a strange move to bring one.

Maybe he got a deal, but someone from one of the richest nations on earth, who is flying to the US for a couple of weeks for vacation, probably isn't concerned about saving $20 on cookware. You could just as reasonably imagine that storeowners in the US are currently eyeing people who buy pressure cookers, especially those of Middle Eastern descent, and he thought it safer to bring one with him. All speculation.

This much is for sure: pressure cookers are on everyone's mind here now, and no one wants to be the border guard who waved on a bomber who was carrying a bomb part in his suitcase. Better safe than sorry. Also: bombers are sometimes quite stupid. Normal people don't make bombs that kill innocent strangers, and the Tsarnaev's certainly pulled a large number of bonehead maneuvers in their deadly rampage.
posted by msalt at 10:53 AM on May 16, 2013 [1 favorite]


True, msalt. As stupid as it sounds to try, some disturbed person pulling a copycat attempt for attention is not beyond the pale of possibilities.
posted by IAmBroom at 11:43 AM on May 16, 2013


I just heard an interview with Kenneth Feinberg, who's administering the Boston victim compensation fund. What a grim expertise he has developed. At the end of the hour, a caller compared him to Atticus Finch, quoting To Kill a Mockingbird: "there are some men in this world who were born to do our unpleasant jobs for us." I cannot even imagine.
posted by headnsouth at 12:42 PM on May 16, 2013 [2 favorites]




Maybe he got a deal, but someone from one of the richest nations on earth, who is flying to the US for a couple of weeks for vacation, probably isn't concerned about saving $20 on cookware. You could just as reasonably imagine that storeowners in the US are currently eyeing people who buy pressure cookers, especially those of Middle Eastern descent, and he thought it safer to bring one with him. All speculation.

Slightly far-fetched speculation, though. I wouldn't be able to put a number on the number of pressure cookers bought in the US over a given weekend, but maybe thousands? I don't imagine somebody of Middle Eastern appearance (since stores do not check passports) buying a pressure cooker in, say, Dearborn, MI would be too shocking. If you're choosing between buying something in a store, in a town you are driving through, with cash and moving it through international airport security, you'd have to be unbelievably stupid to choose the latter.

This much is for sure: pressure cookers are on everyone's mind here now, and no one wants to be the border guard who waved on a bomber who was carrying a bomb part in his suitcase.

Emphasis on "here", there. I don't think the granular detail of the attacks is likely to have been propagated quite so much in other countries.

Possibly unbelievably stupid terrorist, but I suspect this will turn out to be the wrong skin color at the wrong time in the wrong place... we'll see, though.
posted by running order squabble fest at 3:00 PM on May 16, 2013


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